There had been but one thing against Mr. Tipping's
eligibility for marriage, Matilda Tipping would tell you, even years
after, with a lowering of her voice: he was said to be an "atheist," and
a reader of strange books. Yet he seemed a quiet, manageable man, and
likely--again in Mrs. Tipping's phrase--to prove a "good provider;" so
she had risked his heterodoxy, which indeed was a somewhat fanciful
objection on her part, and made him, as he declared with his dying
breath, the best of wives.
It chanced that when Henry, in pursuance of his over-night resolve, made
his way the following afternoon through a dingy little street, and
knocked on the door of a dingy little house, bearing upon a brass plate
the legend "Boots neatly repaired," Mr. Tipping was engaged in giving
one of those very music lessons. A dingy little maid-of-all-work opened
the door, and said that Mrs. Tipping was out shopping, but would be back
soon. From the front parlour came the lifeless tum-tumming of the piano,
and Mr. Tipping's voice gruffly counting time to the cheerless
five-finger exercises of a very evident beginner.
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