way in which shoddy is manufactured. You
may see a thousand rags or garments of a thousand shapes and colours
cast in to be boiled, bleached, pulled to pieces, combed and woven, and
finally come out as a piece of cloth a thousand yards long of a uniform
harmonious pattern, smooth, glossy, and respectable. His individuality
gone, he would in a sense be lost to her; and although by nature a
weak timid woman, though poor, and a stranger in a strange place, this
thought, or feeling, or "ridiculous delusion" as most people would call
it, had made her strong, and she had succeeded in keeping her boy out of
school.

Hers was an interesting story. Left alone in the world she had married
one in her own class, very happily as she imagined. He was in some
business in a country town, well off enough to provide a comfortable
home, and he was very good; in fact, his one fault was that he was too
good, too open-hearted and fond of associating with other good fellows
like himself, and of pledging them in the cup that cheers and at the
same time inebriates. Nevertheless, things went very well for a time,
until the child was born, the business declined, and they began to be a
little pinched. Then it occurred to her that she, too, might be able to
do something. She started dressmaking, and as she had good taste and
was clever and quick, her business soon prospered. This pleased him; it
relieved him from the necessity of providing for the home, and enabled
him to follow his own inclination, which was to take things easily--to
be an idle man, with a little ready money in his pocket for betting and
other pleasures. The money was now provided out of "our business." This
state of things continued without any change, except that process of
degeneration which continued in him, until the child was about four
years old, when all at once one day he told her they were not doing
as well as they might. She was giving far too much of her time and
attention to domestic matters--to the child especially. Business was
business--a thing it was hard for a woman to understand--and it was
impossible for her to give her mind properly to it with her thoughts
occupied with the child. It couldn't be done. Let the child be put away,
he said, and the receipts would probably be doubled. He had been making
inquiries and found that for a modest annual payment the boy could be
taken proper care of at a distance by good decent people he had heard
of.

She had never su