Her age shall be no secret to the reader, though to her most intimate friends, even to Mr Broune, it had never been divulged.

She was forty-three, but carried her years so well, and had received such gifts from nature, that it was impossible to deny that she was still a beautiful woman.

And she used her beauty not only to increase her influence,--as is natural to women who are well-favoured,--but also with a well-considered calculation that she could obtain material assistance in the procuring of bread and cheese, which was very necessary to Her, by a prudent adaptation to her purposes of the good things with which providence had endowed her.

She did not fall in love, she did not wilfully flirt, she did not commit herself; but she smiled and whispered, and made confidences, and looked out of her own eyes into men's eyes as though there might be some mysterious bond between her and them--if only mysterious circumstances would permit it.

But the end of all was to induce some one to do something which would cause a publisher to give her good payment for indifferent writing, or an editor to be lenient when, upon the merits of the case, he should have been severe.