"At the widow's" (Mr Cholderton is speaking of a certain Madame de Kries) "pleasant villa I became acquainted with a lady who made something of a sensation in her day, and whom I remember both for her own sake and because of a curious occurrence connected with her. A year and a half before (or thereabouts) society had been startled by the elopement of Miss T. with Sir R. E. They were married, went to France, and lived together a month or two. Suddenly Sir R. went off alone; whose the fault was nobody knew, or at least it never came to my ears. The lady was not long left in solitude, and, when I met her, she passed as Mrs F., wife of Captain F. The Captain seemed to me an ordinary good-looking reckless young fellow; but Mrs F. was a more striking person. She was tall, graceful, and very fair, a beautiful woman (I might rather say girl) beyond question. Talk revealed her as an absolute child in a moral sense, with a child's infinite candor, a child's infinite deceit, a child's love of praise, a child's defiance of censure where approval would be too dearly earned. She was hardly a reasonable being, as we men of the world understand the term; she was however an exceedingly attractive creature. The natural feelings of a woman, at least, were strong in her, and she was fretting over the prospects of the baby who was soon to be born to her. Captain F. shared her anxiety. I understood their feelings even more fully (in any case the situation was distressing) when I learnt from Madame de Kries that in certain events (which happened later) the lady and her child after her would become persons of rank and importance.