CHAPTER I.
AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR When the knell of my thirtieth birthday sounded, I suddenly realised, with a desolate feeling at the heart, that I was alone in the world.
It was true I had many and good friends, and I was blessed with interests and occupations which I had often declared sufficient to satisfy any not too exacting human being.

Moreover, a small but sufficient competency was mine, allowing me reasonable comforts, and the luxuries of a small but choice library, and a small but choice garden.

These heavenly blessings had seemed mere than enough for nearly five years, during which the good sister and I had kept house together, leading a life of tranquil happy days.

Friends and books and flowers! It was, we said, a good world, and I, simpleton,--pretty and dainty as Margaret was,--deemed it would go on forever.

But, alas! one day came a Faust into our garden,--a good Faust, with no friend Mephistopheles,--and took Margaret from me.