k Holiday comes to
their aid, and they do it! and, heigho! for life's romance.

The happy bride continues at the factory, and brings her shillings to
make up the thirty. They pay three shillings and sixpence weekly for
their room, one-and-six weekly for their household goods, two more
shillings weekly are required for their wedding clothes, that is all!
Have they not twenty-three shillings left!

They knew that they could manage it! All goes merrily as a marriage
bell! Hurrah! They can afford a night or two a week at a music-hall; why
did they not get married before? how stupid they had been!

But something happens, for the bride becomes a mother. Her wages cease,
and thirty shillings weekly for two is a very different matter to twenty
shillings for three!

They had to engage an old woman for nurse for one week only. But
that cost seven shillings and sixpence. A number of other extras are
incurred, all to be paid out of his earnings. They have not completed
the hire purchase business; they have even added to that expense by
the purchase of a bassinet at one shilling weekly for thirty weeks. The
bassinet, however, serves one useful purpose, it saves the expense of a
cradle.

In less than a fortnight the girl mother is again knocking at the
factory door. She wishes to become an "out-worker"; the manager, knowing
her to be a capable machinist, gives her work, and promises her a
constant supply.

Now they are all right again! Are they? Why, she has no sewing-machine!
Stranded again! not a bit of it. The hire purchase again comes to her
help. Eighteenpence deposit is paid, a like weekly payment promised,
signed for and attended to; and lo! a sparkling new sewing-machine is
deposited in their one room. Let us take an inventory of their goods:
one iron bedstead, flock mattress, two pairs of sheets, two blankets and
a common counterpane, a deal chest of drawers, a deal table, two Windsor
chairs, a bassinet carriage, a sewing-machine, fire-shovel, fender and
poker, some few crocks, a looking-glass, a mouth-organ and a couple of
towels, some knives, forks and spoons, a tea-pot, tea-kettle, saucepan
and frying-pan. But I have been very liberal! They stand close together,
do those household goods; they crowd each other, and if one moves, it
jostles the other. The sewing-machine stands in front of the little
window, for it demands the light. It took some scheming to arrange this,
but husband and wife ultimately managed it. Th