This topographical fact was of some advantage in advertising her rooms; but the patrons of the worthy widow were not exactly of the fashionable kind.

Such as they were, her daughter Winnie helped to look after them.

Traces of the French descent which the widow boasted of were apparent in Winnie too.

They were apparent in the extremely neat and artistic arrangement of her glossy dark hair.

Winnie had also other charms: her youth; her full, rounded form; her clear complexion; the provocation of her unfathomable reserve, which never went so far as to prevent conversation, carried on on the lodgers' part with animation, and on hers with an equable amiability.