" said Adelaide, "she is already better than when we first saw her in
New York, but has not yet recovered her speech and can not help herself
at all. One side seems to be quite paralyzed."

"We have an ambulance waiting," said Calhoun. "As soon as the crowd is out
of the way it shall be brought close to the platform of this car and we
will lift her into it."

Greetings were exchanged while they waited.

"Where is Virginia?" asked Mr. Dinsmore.

"She preferred to remain behind," replied Mrs. Allison in a low-toned
aside, "and as she would have been of no use whatever, we did not urge her
to come."

"It is just as well," was Mr. Dinsmore's comment.

Very tenderly and carefully the poor invalid was lifted and placed in the
ambulance by her sons and brothers. The former accompanied her in it,
while the latter, with Mrs. Allison, entered the Roselands family
carriage, and drove thither considerably in advance of the more slowly
moving ambulance.

"Has Virginia made a really good match?" Mr. Dinsmore asked, addressing
his sister Adelaide.

"Good! it could hardly be worse!" she exclaimed. "Would you have believed
it? we found them in a tenement-house, living most wretchedly."

"Is it possible! He was not wealthy then? Or has he lost his means since
the marriage?"

"As far as I can learn," said Mr. Allison, "he has always lived by his
wits; he is a professional gambler now."

"Dreadful! How does he treat his wife?"

"Very badly indeed, if we may credit her story. They live, as the saying
is, like cat and dog, actually coming to blows at times. They are both
bitterly disappointed, each having married the other merely for money;
which neither had."

Mr. Dinsmore looked greatly concerned. "Virginia was never a favorite of
mine," he remarked, "but I do not like to think of her as suffering from
either poverty or the abusive treatment of a bad husband. Can nothing be
done to better her condition?"

"I think not at present," said Adelaide; "she has made her bed and will
have to lie in it. I don't believe the man would ever proceed to personal
violence if she did not exasperate him with taunts and reproaches; with
slaps, scratches, and hair pulling also, he says."

"O disgraceful!" exclaimed her uncle. "I have no pity for her if she is
really guilty of such conduct."

"She told me herself that on one occasion she actually threw a cup of
coffee in his face in return for his accusation that she and her mother
had in