seven boys and eight girls. Mary, the youngest, as soon as her
brief schooling was over, had to shift for herself. She seems to
have tried her hand at one or two things, finally taking service
with a cousin, a baker and confectioner, who was doing well in
Oxford Street. She must have been a remarkably attractive girl;
she's a handsome woman now. I can picture that soft creamy skin
when it was fresh and smooth, and the West of England girls run
naturally to dimples and eyes that glisten as though they had been
just washed in morning dew. The shop did a good trade in ladies'
lunches--it was the glass of sherry and sweet biscuit period. I
expect they dressed her in some neat-fitting grey or black dress,
with short sleeves, showing her plump arms, and that she flitted
around the marble-topped tables, smiling, and looking cool and
sweet. There the present Earl of --, then young Lord C-, fresh
from Oxford, and new to the dangers of London bachelordom, first
saw her. He had accompanied some female relatives to the
photographer's, and, hotels and restaurants being deemed impossible
in those days for ladies, had taken them to Sewell's to lunch.
Mary Sewell waited upon the party; and now as many of that party as
are above ground wait upon Mary Sewell."

"He showed good sense in marrying her," I said, "I admire him for
it." The doctor's sixty-four Lafitte was excellent. I felt
charitably inclined towards all men and women, even towards earls
and countesses.

"I don't think he had much to do with it," laughed the doctor,
"beyond being, like Barkis, 'willing.' It's a queer story; some
people profess not to believe it, but those who know her ladyship
best think it is just the story that must be true, because it is so