Jezebel's Daughter

In the matter of Jezebel's Daughter my recollections begin with the deaths of two foreign gentlemen in two different countries on the same day of the same year. They were both men of some importance in their way and both strangers to each other. Mr. Ephraim Wagner merchant (formerly of Frankfort-on-the-Main) died in London on the third day of September 1828. Doctor Fontaine-famous in his time for discoveries in experimental chemistry-died at Wurzburg on the third day of September 1828. Both the merchant and the doctor left widows. The merchant's widow (an Englishwoman) was childless. The doctor's widow (of a South German family) had a daughter to console her.