It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4½ per cent
Two thousand
five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the interest.”

“You interest me extremely,” said Holmes
“And since you draw so large
a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain, you no
doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in every way
I believe that
a single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of about £ 60.”

“I could do with much less than that, Mr
Holmes, but you understand
that as long as I live at home I don’t wish to be a burden to them, and
so they have the use of the money just while I am staying with them
Of
course, that is only just for the time
Windibank draws my interest
every quarter and pays it over to mother, and I find that I can do
pretty well with what I earn at typewriting
It brings me twopence a
sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a day.”

“You have made your position very clear to me,” said Holmes
Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before
myself
Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr
Hosmer
Angel.”

A flush stole over Miss Sutherland’s face, and she picked nervously at
the fringe of her jacket
“I met him first at the gasfitters’ ball,”
she said
“They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then
afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother
Windibank
did not wish us to go
He never did wish us to go anywhere
He would
get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school treat
But
this time I was set on going, and I would go; for what right had he to
prevent
He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all
father’s friends were to be there
And he said that I had nothing fit
to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never so much as taken
out of the drawer
At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to
France upon the business of the firm, but we went, mother and I, with
Mr
Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr
Hosmer Angel.”

“I suppose,” said Holmes, “that when Mr
Windibank came back from
France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball.”

“Oh, well, he was very good about it
He laughed, I remember, and
shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to a
woman, for she would have her way.”

“I see
Then at the gasfitters’ ball you met, as I understand, a
gentleman called Mr
I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we
had got home all safe, and after that we met him—that is to say, Mr
Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back
again, and Mr
Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more.”

“No?”

“Well, you know father didn’t like anything of the sort
He wouldn’t
have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a woman
should be happy in her own family circle
But then, as I used to say to
mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I had not got
mine yet.”

“But how about Mr
Did he make no attempt to see you?”

“Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote
and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until
he had gone
We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every
day
I took the letters in in the morning, so there was no need for
father to know.”

“Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?”

“Oh, yes, Mr
We were engaged after the first walk that we
took
Angel—was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall
Street—and—”

“What office?”

“That’s the worst of it, Mr
That
will just show you how fond he was of me, Mr
Holmes, and the little
things that he would think of.”

“It was most suggestive,” said Holmes
“It has long been an axiom of
mine that the little things are infinitely the most important
Can you
remember any other little things about Mr
Hosmer Angel?”

“He was a very shy man, Mr
He would rather walk with me in the
evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be
conspicuous
Very retiring and gentlemanly he was
He’d had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he
told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating,
whispering fashion of speech
He was always well dressed, very neat and
plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted
glasses against the glare.”

“Well, and what happened when Mr
Windibank, your stepfather, returned
to France?”

“Mr
Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we should
marry before father came back
He was in dreadful earnest and made me
swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would
always be true to him
Mother said he was quite right to make me swear,
and that it was a sign of his passion
Mother was all in his favour
from the first and was even fonder of him than I was
Your wedding was arranged, then, for the
Friday
