ued. She had no
mother to guide her, she was often lonely, for her father was immersed
in his business.

In a very short time she had fixed her heart on to the man, and when
too late her father expostulated, and finally forbade the man the house.
This only intensified her love and led to quarrels with her father.
Ultimately they married, and had a good home and two servants. In a
little over three years two children added to her joys and sorrows.
Still her husband's faults were not amended, but his dissipation
increased. Monetary difficulties followed, and to avoid disgrace her
father was called upon to provide a large sum of money.

This did not add to his sympathy, but it estranged the father and child.

Then difficulties followed, and soon her husband stood in the dock
charged with embezzlement. Eighteen months' imprisonment was awarded
him, but the greater punishment fell upon the suffering wife. Her father
refused to see her, so with her two little ones she was left to face the
future. Parting with most of her furniture, jewellery, servant, she gave
up her house, took two small rooms, and waited wearily for the eighteen
months to pass.

They passed, and her husband came back to her. But his character was
gone, the difficulty of finding employment stared him in the face.

He joined the ranks of the shabby-genteel to live somehow by bits of
honest work, mixed with a great deal of dishonest work. Four years of
this life, two more children for the mother, increasing drunkenness,
degenerating into brutality on her husband's part. Her father's death
and some little money left to her gave momentary respite. But the money
soon went. Her brother had taken the greater portion and had gone into
a far country. This was the condition of affairs when her husband was
again arrested; this time for forgery. There was no doubt about his
guilt, and a sentence of five years' penal servitude followed. Again she
parted with most of her home, reducing it to one room.

With her four children round her she tried to eke out an existence. She
soon became penniless, and ultimately with her children took refuge in
a London workhouse. After a time the guardians sent the four children
to their country school and nursing home, when she was free to leave the
workhouse and get her own living.

She came out with a letter of introduction to the pickle factory, and
obtained employment at nine shillings a week. The weeks and months
passed, her