They say--they who knew her in after-life--that this earlier face
came back to her in the end, so that the many who remembered opening
their eyes and seeing her bending down over them could never
recognise the portrait of the beautiful sneering lady, even when they
were told whom it represented.

But at the time of John Ingerfield's strange wooing she was the Anne
Singleton of Sir Joshua's portrait, and John Ingerfield liked her the
better that she was.

He had no feeling of sentiment in the matter himself, and it
simplified the case that she had none either. He offered her a plain
bargain, and she accepted it. For all he knew or cared, her attitude
towards this subject of marriage was the usual one assumed by women.
Very young girls had their heads full of romantic ideas. It was
better for her and for him that she had got rid of them.

"Ours will be a union founded on good sense," said John Ingerfield.

"Let us hope the experiment will succeed," said Anne Singleton.



CHAPTER II.



But the experiment does not succeed. The laws of God decree that man
shall purchase woman, that woman shall give herself to man, for other
coin than that of good sense. Good sense is not a legal tender in