It appeared from Mrs. Vanstone’s statement that her mother had been twice married.  Her mother’s first husband had been a certain Doctor Wragge—­a widower with young children; and one of those children was now the unmilitary-looking captain, whose address was “Post-office, Bristol.”  Mrs. Wragge had left no family by her first husband; and had afterward married Mrs. Vanstone’s father.  Of that second marriage Mrs. Vanstone herself was the only issue.  She had lost both her parents while she was still a young woman; and, in course of years, her mother’s family connections (who were then her nearest surviving relatives) had been one after another removed by death.  She was left, at the present writing, without a relation in the world—­excepting, perhaps, certain cousins whom she had never seen, and of whose existence even, at the present moment, she possessed no positive knowledge.

Under these circumstances, what family claim had Captain Wragge on Mrs. Vanstone?

None whatever.  As the son of her mother’s first husband, by that husband’s first wife, not even the widest stretch of courtesy could have included him at any time in the list of Mrs. Vanstone’s most distant relations.  Well knowing this (the letter proceeded to say), he had nevertheless persisted in forcing himself upon her as a species of family connection:  and she had weakly sanctioned the intrusion, solely from the dread that he would otherwise introduce himself to Mr. Vanstone’s notice, and take unblushing advantage of Mr. Vanstone’s generosity.  Shrinking, naturally, from allowing her husband to be annoyed, and probably cheated as well, by any person who claimed, however preposterously, a family connection with herself, it had been her practice, for many years past, to assist the captain from her own purse, on the condition that he should never come near the house, and that he should not presume to make any application whatever to Mr. Vanstone.

Readily admitting the imprudence of this course, Mrs. Vanstone further explained that she had perhaps been the more inclined to adopt it through having been always accustomed, in her early days, to see the captain living now upon one member, and now upon another, of her mother’s family.  Possessed of abilities which might have raised him to distinction in almost any career that he could have chosen, he had nevertheless, from his youth upward, been a disgrace to all his relatives.  He had been expelled the militia regiment in which he once held a commission.  He had tried one employment after another, and had discreditably failed in all.  He had lived on his wits, in the lowest and basest meaning of the phrase.  He had married a poor ignorant woman, who had served as a waitress at some low eating-house, who had unexpectedly come into a little money, and whose small inheritance he had mercilessly squandered to the last farthing.  In plain terms, he was an incorrigible scoundrel; and he had now added one more to the list of his many misdemeanors by impudently breaking the conditions on which Mrs. Vanstone had hitherto assisted him.  She had written at once to the address indicated on his card, in such terms and to such purpose as would prevent him, she hoped and believed, from ever venturing near the house again.  Such were the terms in which Mrs. Vanstone concluded that first part of her letter which referred exclusively to Captain Wragge.