The old parson who was here before me left an only daughter behind him.

The living had ruined him, as it ruins me, and, as I say, he left his daughter, my wife that was, behind him, and a pretty good bill for dilapidations I had against the estate.

But there wasn't any estate, so I made the best of a bad business and married the daughter, and a sweet pretty woman she was, poor dear, very like my Beatrice, only without the brains.

I can't make out where Beatrice's brains come from indeed, for I am sure I don't set up for having any.
She was well born, too, my wife was, of an old Cornish family, but she had nowhere to go to, and I think she married me because she didn't know what else to do, and was fond of the old place.

She took me on with it, as it were.