That stepmother, it must be explained, is quite well known to you. That is a little surprise I have prepared for you. She is ‘Thomas Plantagenet,’ the gifted authoress of that witty and daring book, “A Soul Untrammelled,” and quite an excellent woman in her way,—only it is such a crooked way. Her real name is Milton. She is a widow and a charming one, only ten years older than Jessie, and she is always careful to dedicate her more daring works to the ‘sacred memory of my husband’ to show that there’s nothing personal, you know, in the matter. Considering her literary reputation (she was always speaking of herself as one ‘martyred for truth,’ because the critics advertised her written indecorums in column long ‘slates’),—considering her literary reputation, I say, she was one of the most respectable women it is possible to imagine. She furnished correctly, dressed correctly, had severe notions of whom she might meet, went to church, and even at times took the sacrament in some esoteric spirit. And Jessie she brought up so carefully that she never even let her read “A Soul Untrammelled.” Which, therefore, naturally enough, Jessie did, and went on from that to a feast of advanced literature. Mrs. Milton not only brought up Jessie carefully, but very slowly, so that at seventeen she was still a clever schoolgirl (as you have seen her) and quite in the background of the little literary circle of unimportant celebrities which ‘Thomas Plantagenet’ adorned. Mrs. Milton knew Bechamel’s reputation of being a dangerous man; but then bad men are not bad women, and she let him come to her house to show she was not afraid—she took no account of Jessie. When the elopement came, therefore, it was a double disappointment to her, for she perceived his hand by a kind of instinct. She did the correct thing. The correct thing, as you know, is to take hansom cabs, regardless of expense, and weep and say you do not know _what_ to do, round the circle of your confidential friends. She could not have ridden nor wept more had Jessie been her own daughter—she showed the properest spirit. And she not only showed it, but felt it.