Mrs. Harrington was sitting in her parlour with one of her married nieces, Mrs. Fiske, and on reading Lady Racial’s card she gave word for her to be shown up into the drawing-room.  It was customary among Mrs. Harrington’s female relatives, who one and all abused and adored the great Mel, to attribute his shortcomings pointedly to the ladies; which was as much as if their jealous generous hearts had said that he was sinful, but that it was not his fault.  Mrs. Fiske caught the card from her aunt, read the superscription, and exclaimed:  ’The idea!  At least she might have had the decency!  She never set her foot in the house before—­and right enough too!  What can she want now?  I decidedly would refuse to see her, aunt!’

The widow’s reply was simply, ‘Don’t be a fool, Ann!’

Rising, she said:  ’Here, take poor Jacko, and comfort him till I come back.’

Jacko was a middle-sized South American monkey, and had been a pet of her husband’s.  He was supposed to be mourning now with the rest of the family.  Mrs. Fiske received him on a shrinking lap, and had found time to correct one of his indiscretions before she could sigh and say, in the rear of her aunt’s retreating figure, ’I certainly never would let myself, down so’; but Mrs. Harrington took her own counsel, and Jacko was of her persuasion, for he quickly released himself from Mrs. Fiske’s dispassionate embrace, and was slinging his body up the balusters after his mistress.

‘Mrs. Harrington,’ said Lady Racial, very sweetly swimming to meet her as she entered the room, ’I have intruded upon you, I fear, in venturing to call upon you at such a time?’

The widow bowed to her, and begged her to be seated.

Lady Racial was an exquisitely silken dame, in whose face a winning smile was cut, and she was still sufficiently youthful not to be accused of wearing a flower too artificial.

‘It was so sudden! so sad!’ she continued.  ’We esteemed him so much.  I thought you might be in need of sympathy, and hoped I might—­Dear Mrs. Harrington! can you bear to speak of it?’

‘I can tell you anything you wish to hear, my lady,’ the widow replied.  Lady Racial had expected to meet a woman much more like what she conceived a tradesman’s wife would be:  and the grave reception of her proffer of sympathy slightly confused her.  She said: 

’I should not have come, at least not so early, but Sir Jackson, my husband, thought, and indeed I imagined—­You have a son, Mrs. Harrington?  I think his name is—­’

‘Evan, my lady.’

’Evan.  It was of him we have been speaking.  I imagined that is, we thought, Sir Jackson might—­you will be writing to him, and will let him know we will use our best efforts to assist him in obtaining some position worthy of his—­superior to—­something that will secure him from the harassing embarrassments of an uncongenial employment.’

The widow listened to this tender allusion to the shears without a smile of gratitude.  She replied:  ’I hope my son will return in time to bury his father, and he will thank you himself, my lady.’