nd of her till she took to drinking."

"Perhaps; but is it not Tennyson who has said: ''Tis better to have loved
and lost, than never to have lost at all'?"

"You are an inveterate bachelor," was the rejoinder.

Then we had a long talk with John, to whom I gave a 5 pound note upon the
spot. He said, "Ellen had used to drink at Battersby; the cook had
taught her; he had known it, but was so fond of her, that he had chanced
it and married her to save her from the streets and in the hope of being
able to keep her straight. She had done with him just as she had done
with Ernest--made him an excellent wife as long as she kept sober, but a
very bad one afterwards."

"There isn't," said John, "a sweeter-tempered, handier, prettier girl
than she was in all England, nor one as knows better what a man likes,
and how to make him happy, if you can keep her from drink; but you can't
keep her; she's that artful she'll get it under your very eyes, without
you knowing it. If she can't get any more of your things to pawn or
sell, she'll steal her neighbours'. That's how she got into trouble
first when I was with her. During the six months she was in prison I
should have felt happy if I had not known she would come out again. And
then she did come out, and before she had been free a fortnight, she
began shop-lifting and going on the loose again--and all to get money to
drink with. So seeing I could do nothing with her and that she was just
a-killing of me, I left her, and came up to London, and went into service
again, and I did not know what had become of her till you and Mr Ernest
here told me. I hope you'll neither of you say you've seen me."

We assured him we would keep his counsel, and then he left us, with many
protestations of affection towards Ernest, to whom he had been always
much attached.

We talked the situation over, and decided first to get the children away,
and then to come to terms with Ellen concerning their future custody; as
for herself, I proposed that we should make her an allowance of, say, a
pound a week to be paid so long as she gave no trouble. Ernest did not
see where the pound a week was to come from, so I eased his mind by
saying I would pay it myself. Before the day was two hours older we had
got the children, about whom Ellen had always appeared to be indifferent,
and had confided them to the care of my laundress, a good motherly sort
of woman, who took to them and to whom they took at once