splendid in theory, is not
always quite so splendid in practice. Love's young dream had wound up
after eleven months, in poverty, privation, sickness and trouble, a
neglectful husband, and a crying baby! How happy she had been in that
bright girlhood, gone forever! Life had been one long summer holiday,
and she dressed in silks and jewels, one of the queen-bees in the great
human hive. The silks and the jewels had gone to the pawnbroker long
ago, and here she sat, alone, in a miserable lodging-house, subsisting
on unpalatable food, sleeping on a hard mattress, sick and wretched,
with that whimpering infant's wails in her ears all day and all night.
Oh! how long ago it seemed since she had been bright, and beautiful, and
happy, and free--hundreds of years ago at the very least! She sighed in
bitter sorrow, as she thought of the past--the irredeemable past.

"Oh, what a fool I was!" she thought, bursting into hysterical tears.
"If I had only married Jules La Touche, how happy I might have been! He
loved me, poor fellow, and would have been true always, and I would have
been rich, and happy, and honoured. Now I am poor, and sick, and
neglected, and despised, and I wish I were dead, and all the trouble
over!"

Mrs. Stanford sat in her low chair, brooding over such dismal thoughts
as these, while the slow hours dragged on. The baby slept, for a wonder.
A neighbouring church clock struck the hours solemnly one after
another--ten, eleven, twelve! No Mr. Stanford yet, but that was nothing
new. As midnight, struck, Rose got up, secured the door, and going into
an inner room, flung herself, dressed as she was, on the bed, and fell
into the heavy, dreamless sleep of exhaustion.

She slept so soundly that she never heard a key turn in the lock, about
three in the morning, or a man's unsteady step crossing the floor. The
lamp still burning on the table, enabled Mr. Reginald Stanford to see
what he was about, otherwise, serious consequences might have ensued.
For Mr. Stanford was not quite steady on his legs, and lurched as he
walked, as if his wife's sitting-room had been the deck of a
storm-tossed vessel.

"I s'pose she's gone to bed," muttered Mr. Stanford, hiccoughing. "Don't
want to wake her--makes a devil of a row! I ain't drunk, but I don't
want to wake her."

Mr. Stanford lurched unsteadily across the parlour, and reconnoitred the
bedroom. He nodded sagaciously, seeing his wife there asleep, and after
making one or two