Mrs.Ambrose was a good manager and a good mother, and her husband had worked hard.

Between them they had brought up their children exceedingly well.

The son had in his turn entered the church, had exhibited a faculty of pushing his way which had not characterised his father, had got a curacy in a fashionable Yorkshire watering-place, and was thought to be on the way to obtain a first-rate living.

In the course of time, too, the daughter had lost her heart to a young physician who had brilliant prospects and some personal fortune, and the Reverend Augustin Ambrose had given his consent to the union.

Nor had he been disappointed.