of forty-five, when this story begins, it would not have been easy
to find; but nevertheless people spoke of no less than two romances
that had been connected with his life. One of them had been his
early marriage, which had created a mild sensation, while the other
had come into his life even sooner, in fact on the very first day of
his arrival at Oakdale.

Mr. Davis could still bring back to his mind with perfect clearness
the first night he had spent in the little wooden cottage which he
had hired for his residence; how while busily unpacking his trunk
and trying to bring the disordered place into shape, he had opened
the door in answer to a knock and beheld a woman stagger in out of
the storm. She was a young girl, surely not yet out of her teens,
her pale and sunken face showing marks of refinement and of former
beauty. She carried in her arms a child of about a year's age, and
she dropped it upon the sofa and sank down beside it, half fainting
from exhaustion. The young clergyman's anxious inquiries having
succeeded in eliciting but incoherent replies, he had left the room
to procure some nourishment for the exhausted woman; it was upon his
return that the discovery of the romance alluded to was made, for
the woman had disappeared in the darkness and storm, and the baby
was still lying upon the sofa.

It was not altogether a pleasant romance, as is probably the case
with a good many romances in reality. Mr. Davis was destined to
retain for a long time a vivid recollection of the first night which
he spent in alternately feeding that baby with a spoon, and in
walking the floor with it; and also to remember the sly glances
which his parishioners only half hid from him when his unpleasant
plight was made known.