ens you might bear, and who might help
you to bear yours. Suppose you were down on your luck, still stunned by
a horrible shock, and this bright vista of a happy future floated
suddenly before you, how long under these circumstances do you think you
would reflect before you would decide on embracing what chance had thrown
in your way?

It did not take my hero long, for before he got past the ham and beef
shop near the top of Fetter Lane, he had told Ellen that she must come
home with him and live with him till they could get married, which they
would do upon the first day that the law allowed.

I think the devil must have chuckled and made tolerably sure of his game
this time.

CHAPTER LXXII

Ernest told Ellen of his difficulty about finding employment.

"But what do you think of going into a shop for, my dear," said Ellen.
"Why not take a little shop yourself?"

Ernest asked how much this would cost. Ellen told him that he might take
a house in some small street, say near the "Elephant and Castle," for
17s. or 18s. a week, and let off the two top floors for 10s., keeping the
back parlour and shop for themselves. If he could raise five or six
pounds to buy some second-hand clothes to stock the shop with, they could
mend them and clean them, and she could look after the women's clothes
while he did the men's. Then he could mend and make, if he could get the
orders.

They could soon make a business of 2 pounds a week in this way; she had a
friend who began like that and had now moved to a better shop, where she
made 5 or 6 pounds a week at least--and she, Ellen, had done the greater
part of the buying and selling herself.

Here was a new light indeed. It was as though he had got his 5000 pounds
back again all of a sudden, and perhaps ever so much more later on into
the bargain. Ellen seemed more than ever to be his good genius.

She went out and got a few rashers of bacon for his and her breakfast.
She cooked them much more nicely than he had been able to do, and laid
breakfast for him and made coffee, and some nice brown toast. Ernest had
been his own cook and housemaid for the last few days and had not given
himself satisfaction. Here he suddenly found himself with someone to
wait on him again. Not only had Ellen pointed out to him how he could
earn a living when no one except himself had known how to advise him, but
here she was so pretty and smiling, looking after even his comforts, and
res