"And how did you make it, dear? by writing?"

"No."

"By fees from the poor people?"

"What, undersell my brethren! Hang it, no! My dear, I made it honestly,
and some day I will tell you how I made it; at present, all I will tell
you is this: I saw my darling longing for something she had a right to
long for; I saw the tears in her sweet eyes, and--oh, come along, do. I
am wretched till I see you with the things in your hand."

They went to the shop; and Staines sat and watched Rosa buying
baby-clothes. Oh, it was a pretty sight to see this modest young
creature, little more than a child herself, anticipating maternity, but
blushing every now and then, and looking askant at her lord and master.
How his very bowels yearned over her!

And when they got home, she spread the things on a table, and they
sat hand in hand, and looked at them, and she leaned her head on his
shoulder, and went quietly to sleep there.

And yet, as time rolled on, she became irritable at times, and
impatient, and wanted all manner of things she could not have, and made
him unhappy.

Then he was out from six o'clock till one, and she took it into her head
to be jealous. So many hours to spend away from her! Now that she wanted
all his comfort.

Presently, Ellen, the new maid, got gossiping in the yard, and a groom
told her her master had a sweetheart on the sly, he thought; for he
drove the brougham out every evening himself; "and," said the man, "he
wears a mustache at night."

Ellen ran in, brimful of this, and told the cook; the cook told the
washerwoman; the washerwoman told a dozen families, till about two
hundred people knew it.

At last it came to Mrs. Staines in a roundabout way, at the very moment
when she was complaining to Lady Cicely Treherne of her hard lot. She
had been telling her she was nothing more than a lay-figure in the
house.

"My husband is housekeeper now, and cook, and all, and makes me
delicious dishes, I can tell you; SUCH curries! I couldn't keep the
house with five pounds a week, so now he does it with three: and I never
get the carriage, because walking is best for me; and he takes it out
every night to make money. I don't understand it."

Lady Cicely suggested that perhaps Dr. Staines thought it best for her
to be relieved of all worry, and so undertook the housekeeping.

"No, no, no," said Rosa; "I used to pay them all a part of their bills,
and then a little more, and so I kept getting deeper; and I