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the fringe of her jacket. “I met him first at the gasfitters’ ball,
she said. “They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then
afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank
did not wish us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere. He would
get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school treat. But
this time I was set on going, and I would go; for what right had he to
prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all
father’s friends were to be there. And he said that I had nothing fit
to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never so much as taken
out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to
France upon the business of the firm, but we went, mother and I, with
Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr.
Hosmer Angel.
“I suppose, said Holmes, “that when Mr. Windibank came back from
France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball.
“Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, and
shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to a
woman, for she would have her way.
“I see. Then at the gasfitters’ ball you met, as I understand, a
gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel.
“Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we
had got home all safe, and after that we met him—that is to say, Mr.
Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back
again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more.
“No?
“Well, you know father didn’t like anything of the sort. He wouldn’t
have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a woman
should be happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used to say to
mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I had not got
mine yet.
“But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?
“Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote
and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until
he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every
day. I took the letters in in the morning, so there was no need for
father to know.
“Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?
“Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we
took. Hosmer—Mr. Angel—was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall
Street—and—
“What office?
“That’s the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don’t know.
“Where did he live, then?
“He slept on the premises.
“And you don’t know his address?
“No—except that it was Leadenhall Street.
“Where did you address your letters, then?
“To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. He
said that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all
the other clerks about having letters from a lady, so I offered to
typewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn’t have that, for he said
that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when they were
typewritten he always felt that the machine had come between us. That
will just show you how fond he was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the little
things that he would think of.
“It was most suggestive, said Holmes. “It has long been an axiom of
mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. Can you
remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?
“He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the
evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be
conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was
gentle. He’d had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he
told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating,
whispering fashion of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat and
plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted
glasses against the glare.
“Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather, returned
to France?
“Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we should
marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest and made me
swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would
always be true to him. Mother said he was quite right to make me swear,
and that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was all in his favour
from the first and was even fonder of him than I was. Then, when they
talked of marrying within the week, I began to ask about father; but
they both said never to mind about father, but just to tell him
afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with him. I
didn’t quite like that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I should ask