E. Nesbit

“ And music—Sylvia’s taste in music had been Sullivan; the old wife touched the piano with magic fingers, and Bach, Beethoven, Wagner came to transfigure the Temple rooms. Michael had never been so contented—never so wretched; for, as the quiet weeks went by, the leaves fell from the plane tree, and the time drew near when he must show his wife to the tenants—his white-haired wife. In these months a very real friendship had grown up between them. Michael had never met a woman, old or young, whose tastes chimed so tunefully with his own. ”

“ A woman one shade less intuitive would have let the dusky masses fall over a lace-covered tea-gown.
“Michael,” she said, “I am your wife. Are you going to forgive me?”
He raised himself slowly from his chair, and his eyes dwelt on detail after detail of the beauty before him.
“My wife!” he said. “You are a stranger!”
“I did disguise myself well. My sister told me about your advertisement; she lives with Sylvia Maddox. We each have a hundred pounds a year. At first I did it for fun; but when I had seen how—how nice you were—my mother is very poor. There are no excuses. ”

“ The old lady raised eyebrows as delicate as Sylvia’s own.
“Hardly, I think,” she said, “since your servant admitted me to an interview with you. May I ask you one or two questions before you finally decide against me?”
The voice was low and soft—the voice men loved in the early sixties, before the shrill shriek became the voice of fashionable ladies.
“Certainly,” Michael said. He could hardly say less, and in the tumult of embarrassment that had swept over him, he could not for his life have said more.
The old lady went on. “I am competent to manage a house. I can read aloud fairly well. ”

“ He raised her hands to his lips.
“Have you forgotten Sylvia?”
“Absolutely, thank God! And you—I—after all, we are married, though there were no roses at our June wedding.”
Again her eyes questioned mutely.
He leaned forward and touched the Christmas roses with his lips. Then he dropped her hands and caught her by the shoulders.
“Oh! foolish, foolish, foolish people!” he said. “We two are man and wife. My wife! my wife! my wife! We are, aren’t we?” ”

“ May I think about it till to-morrow?”
The contrast between the old lady’s dainty correctness of attire and speech, and the extraordinary unconventionality of her proposal, made Michael’s brain reel. She turned from the window, again looked him fairly in the eyes, and said: “You will not find me unconventional in other matters. This is purely an affair of business, and I approach it in a business spirit. You would be giving a home to one who wants it, and I should be helping you to what you need still more. I have never been married. I never wished to marry ”

“ She was playing for a high stake, and being a true woman she had disdained no honest artifice that might help her. She wore shining white silk, severely plain, and her brown hair was dressed high on her head. ”