the hair from his lip and he's got such funny clothes on! Do come and
look at his hat!"

The child was puny, unprepossessing, and dirty. Worse tragedy than
this, Burton knew it. The woman who presently appeared to gaze at him
with open-mouthed wonder, was pretentiously and untidily dressed, with
some measure of good looks woefully obscured by a hard and unsympathetic
expression. Burton knew these things also. It flashed into his mind as
he stood there that her first attraction to him had been because she
resembled his ill-conceived idea of an actress. As a matter of fact,
she resembled much more closely her cousin, who was a barmaid. Burton
looked into the tragedy of his life and shivered.

"What in the name of wonder's the meaning of this, Alfred?" his better
half demanded. "What are you standing there for, looking all struck of
a heap?"

He made no reply. Speech, for the moment, was absolutely impossible.
She stood and stared at him, her arms akimbo, disapproval written in her
face. Her hair was exceedingly untidy and there was a smut upon her
cheek. A soiled lace collar, fastened with an imitation diamond brooch,
had burst asunder.

"What's come to your moustache?" she demanded. "And why are you dressed
like--like a house-painter on a Sunday?"

Burton found his first gleam of consolation. A newly-discovered sense
of humor soothed him inexplicably.

"Sorry you don't like my clothes," he replied. "You'll get used to