“Is that right, Mr. Tacchi?” she said.

“Quite right; nothing could be better.”

Giacomo would not, however, insert the wedges; they were soft, and might be broader; he would cut some better ones out of mahogany or oak, and bring them the next day.  The next day he brought them, and in a very short time married Miss Miriam solely on the strength of the lovely line, the white stockings, and the foot.  When she came to live at his house in Cowfold, he found that she did not always stand on the footstool and display the same curve, but nevertheless she made him a fairly good wife, and he and she lived together on the usual marital terms, without any particular raptures, and without any particular discord, for five years, when unfortunately she died, after giving birth to her second child, which was named Miriam, after its mother.  Giacomo was left with an elder boy, Andrew, and with the infant.

Andrew grew up something like his mother, a fairly average mortal who learned his lessons tolerably, was distinguished by no eminent virtues nor eminent vices, no eminent gratitude nor hatreds; and it seemed as if he would one day in the fulness of time do what Cowfold for centuries had done before him—­that is to say, succeed his father in his business, marry some average Cowfold girl, beget more average Cowfold children, lead a life unvexed by any speculation or dreams, unenlightened by any revelation, and finally sleep in Cowfold churchyard with thousands of his predecessors, remembered for perhaps a year, and then forgotten for ever.

Miriam, however, was of a different stamp.  Her real ancestry was a puzzle.  In some respects she resembled her father.  Knowing that she was Giacomo’s child, it was easy for the observer to trace the lineage of some of her qualities; but nevertheless they reappeared in her on a different scale, in different proportions, so that in action they became totally different, and there were others not inherited from Giacomo which modified all the rest.  It is impossible to throw a new characteristic into a given nature, and obtain as a result the original nature plus the characteristic added.  The addition will most likely change the whole mass, and often entirely degrade or translate it.  It is just possible, such are the wonders of spiritual chemistry, that there may have been nothing in Miriam but her father with a touch of her mother, and that the combination of the two may have wrought this curiously diverse product; or the common explanation may have been correct, that in her there was a resurrection of some unknown ancestor, either on the father’s or mother’s side.  She was a big girl—­her father was rather short and squat—­with black hair and dark eyes, limbs loosely set, with a tendency to sprawl, large feet and hands.  She had a handsome, regular face, a little freckled; but the mouth, although it was beautifully curved, was a trifle too long, and except when she was in a passion, was not sufficiently