ade a good thing of games of skill, but did not pursue them as a
means of profit when he no longer needed the resource.

He married at the age of thirty. This, like every other step he took,
was well planned; his wife brought him several thousand pounds, being
the daughter of a retired publican with whom Woodstock had had business
relations.

Two years after his marriage was born his first and only child, a girl
whom they called Lotty. Lotty, as she grew up, gradually developed an
unfortunate combination of her parents' qualities; she had her mother's
weakness of mind, without her mother's moral sense, and from her father
she derived an ingrained stubbornness, which had nothing in common with
strength of character. Doubly unhappy was it that she lost her mother
so early; the loss deprived her of gentle guidance during her youth,
and left her without resource against her father's coldness or
harshness. The result was that the softer elements of her character
unavoidably degenerated and found expression in qualities not at all
admirable, whilst her obstinacy grew the ally of the weakness from
which she had most to fear.

Lotty was sent to a day-school till the age of thirteen, then had to
become her father's housekeeper. Her friends were very few, none of
them likely to be of use to her. Left very much to her own control, she
made an acquaintance which led to secret intimacy and open disaster.
Rather than face her father with such a disclosure, she left home, and
threw herself upon the mercy of the man who had assisted her to go
astray. He was generous enough to support her for about a year, during
which time her child was born. Then his help ceased.

The familiar choice lay before her--home again, the streets, or
starvation. Hardship she could not bear; the second alternative she
shrank from on account of her child; she determined to face her father.
For him she had no affection, and knew that he did not love her; only
desperation could drive her back. She came one Sunday evening, found
Mr. Woodstock at home, and, without letting the servant say who was
come, went up and entered his presence, the child in her arms. Abraham
rose and looked at her calmly. Her disappearance had not troubled him,
though he had exerted himself to discover why and whither she was gone,
and her return did not visibly affect him. She was a rebel against his
authority--so he viewed the matter--and consequently quite beyond the
range of his sy