Mrs. Wortley was a widow without children. So many events have to be crowded in, and the story thickens so greatly, that nothing more need be said of her. The lodgings she had been temporarily occupying were near to old St. Pancras Church, and there Mrs. Sam Copp and Anna found her--two brave, skilful, tender nurses, ever ready to do their best. Never before had Anna found illness wearisome; never before thought London the most dreary spot on earth. Ah, it was not in the locality; it was not in the illness that the ennui lay; but in the absence of Isaac Thornycroft. He called to see them once, rather to the chagrin of the captain's wife, and he met Anna the same day when she went for her walk. Mrs. Sam Copp did not suspect it. They had been in London about a month, the invalid was better, and Mrs. Copp began to talk of returning home again; when one dark November morning, upon Anna's returning home from her walk--which Mrs. Copp, remembering her past weak condition, the result of work and confinement, insisted on her taking--Isaac Thornycroft came in with her. He put his hat down on the table, took Mrs. Copp's hands in his, and was entering upon some story, evidently a solemn one, when Anna nearly startled Mrs. Copp into fits by falling at her feet with a prayer for forgiveness, and bursting into tears. "Oh, aunt, forgive, forgive me! Isaac over-persuaded me; he did indeed." "Persuaded you to what?" asked Mrs. Copp. "To become my wife," interposed Isaac. "We were married this morning." The first thing Mrs. Copp did was to sink into a chair, her hair rising up on end; the next was to go into hysterics. Isaac, quiet, calm, gentlemanly as ever, sent Anna away while he told the tale. "I thought it the best plan," he avowed. "When I met Anna out yesterday--by chance as she thought--I got a promise from her to meet me again this morning, no matter what the weather might be. It turned out a dense fog, but she came. Through the fog I got her into the church door, and took her to the clergyman, waiting at the altar for us, before she well knew what was going to be." Mrs. Copp threw up her hands, and screamed, and cried, and for once in her life called another creature deceitful--meaning Anna. But Anna--as he hastened to explain--had not been deceitful; she had but yielded to his strong will in the agitation and surprise of the moment. Calculating upon this defect in her character--if it could be called a defect, brought up as she had been--Isaac Thornycroft had made the arrangements at St. Pancras church without saying a word to her; and, as it really may be said, surprised her into the marriage at the time of its taking place. "There's the certificate," he said; "I asked the clergyman to give me one. Put it up carefully, dear Mrs. Copp."