"Of course not--you are a woman. But languages now. French, perhaps?" "Yes, uncle." "And German?" "Yes, uncle." "Ah, a Crichton in petticoats. Any others?" "Those are all the languages I can speak, uncle." "And enough, too, Nansie." "Yes, uncle." "I must do your father the justice to say that he has furnished you well. But I suppose you can't make a pudding?" "Yes, I can, uncle." "Better and better. I thought I was about to learn something. And, now, when your father died he did not leave a fortune behind him?" "He died poor." "But you were not alone and unprotected. You had a husband by your side. It occurs to me as strange that so soon before my brother's death he should have written to me in anxiety about you, and should have asked me to give you a home here in London; and you with a husband all the time!" "My father did not know I was married." "But you were?" "Yes." "Do you mean to tell me that you were secretly married?" "It is so, uncle." "I never heard of a secret marriage the motive for which did not spring from the man. It was your husband's wish that your marriage should be kept secret?" "For a time only, uncle; until his father's return from abroad." "Of course--family reasons." "Yes." "The usual story. What difference would it have made if you had been married with your father's consent and knowledge? There would have been less duplicity in the affair." "Uncle, it is difficult sometimes to see how things come about. It happened as I have told you. It might not if we had consulted my dear father beforehand." "Would he have refused his consent?" "It is most likely." "Ah! However careless and unmindful my brother might have been in worldly matters, he was a gentleman and a man of fine instincts. You married a man beneath you?" "You are wrong, uncle. I married a gentleman far above me." "And yet you tell me your father would have refused his consent." "You forget, uncle. My dear father was truly what you have described him--a man of fine instincts." "Well?" "We were poor; my husband's family are very wealthy." "I am corrected. The fact would have caused my brother to act as you say, unless, indeed, the consent of your husband's parents had been previously obtained." "It was not, uncle." "What rash folly! I anticipate your answer. You were in love." "Yes, uncle." "I am beginning to get puzzled. There is a kind of tangle here. In the first letter you wrote to me you signed yourself Nansie. Nothing more. When I replied to you I addressed you in your father's name. In your second letter, acquainting me that you were married, you signed yourself Nansie Manners." "That is my name." "You tell me that you have married into a wealthy family, and you come to me faint and hungry, with two-and-eightpence in your purse. And I will hazard the guess that you travelled third-class." "I did, uncle." "Explain the anomaly."