lement and a curse. We know it from the experience of the world
at large,--which is perhaps more brutalised by marriage than by anything
else.--No need to test the thing once more, to our own disaster.'

'What I think is, that, though you pay me compliments, you really have
a very poor opinion of me. You think I should burden and worry you in
endless silly ways. I am not such a simpleton. In however small a house,
there could be your rooms and mine. Do you suppose I should interfere
with your freedom in coming and going?'

'Whether you meant to or not, you would--so long as we are struggling
with poverty. However self-willed I am, I am not selfish; and to see you
living a monotonous, imprisoned life would be a serious hindrance to me
in my own living and working. Of course the fact is so at present, and
I often enough think in a troubled way about you; but you are out of my
sight, and that enables me to keep you out of mind. If I am away from
home till one or two in the morning, there is no lonely wife fretting
and wondering about me. For work such as mine, I must live as though I
were not married at all.'

'But suppose we got out of our poverty,' urged Nancy, 'you would be
living the same life, I suppose; and how would it be any better for you
or me that we had a large house instead of a small one?'

'Your position will be totally changed. When money comes, friends come.
You are not hiding away from Society because you are unfit for it, only
because you can't live as your social equals do. When you have friends
of your own, social engagements, interests on every hand, I shall
be able to go my own way without a pang of conscience. When we come
together, it will be to talk of your affairs as well as of mine. Living
as you do now, you have nothing on earth but the baby to think about--a
miserable state of things for a woman with a mind. I know it is
miserable, and I'm struggling tooth and nail to help you out of it.'

Nancy sighed.

'Then there are years of it still before me.'

'Heaven forbid! Some years, no doubt, before we shall have a home; but
not before I can bring you in contact with the kind of people you ought
to know. You shall have a decent house--socially possible--somewhere out
west; and I, of course, shall still go on in lodgings.'

He waited for Nancy's reply, but she kept silence.

'You are still dissatisfied?'

She looked up, and commanded her features to the expression which makes
whatever wom