as still hemming and stitching,
indefatigably, seized once more with professional pride after her
excursions into private life. And, all night, under the lamp, she
contrived, cut out and sewed. Then came practice, without Pa. In an hour,
in spite of the new machine, which put her out, she had picked up her
"times" again. She felt as if she had been spinning round the night
before, under Pa's eye, so absolutely at her ease was she, with her head
on the saddle or twirling on the back-wheel.

And, on the following Monday, her first appearance, her name on the walls:
"Miss Lily" in big letters, right at the top of the posters, "Miss Lily,"
not "Mrs." or "Madame." Had she had ten children, two husbands and three
divorces, she would still have been "Miss," everywhere and always, as a
further attraction for the swells in the front boxes and as a certificate
of youth. Mighty few husbands, on the continent especially; not more men
of any kind than could be helped, on the stage, except a few noted
"profs," standing by the perches of velvet and steel or under the
trapezes, displaying, beside the pink-silk tights, against the "palace"
back-drop, the faultless correctness of their full-dress suits. But, for
the rest, people preferred to ignore husbands, brothers and "friends;"
Lily had known some who never showed themselves at all, who remained
squatting at home, so as not to stand in their wives' way.

Trampy, for that matter, knew better than to parade himself with Lily. And
he preferred it so. He could have wished one thing to the exclusion of all
others: that people should not know of his marriage, that they should
cease to speak of it. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The story of the
whippings was enlivening Lisle Street, exaggerated, as usual. The Bill and
Boom tour, the Harrasford tour were beginning to spread it on every stage
in England; before six months were over, it would have made the round of
the world from the Klondike to Calcutta. What a disgrace for Trampy! Yet
no sooner had he put his New Zealander on her wheels again than Trampy
blossomed out once more. After all, who cared if people were seen to smack
the back of their hands? He wasn't to be put out by a little thing like
that:

"Just so," he seemed to say. "We are married, whippings or no whippings,
and I am the master; I have set her to work again; and there you are!"

Trampy's reputation, so far from suffering, increased; all his compeers
now envied him