all in white, with white flowers in her hair and carrying a bouquet of
white flowers in her hand, is being driven towards the church. Passing
the solitary woman on the bridge she picks a beautiful flower from the
bouquet she is carrying and tosses it at her feet, for she wishes to-day
to make all whom she sees as happy as herself. A little of the hard
look leaves the woman's face as she stoops to pick the flower.
Mechanically she follows the carriage, with stealthy steps and bated
breath she enters the church, choosing a dark corner where she will not
be observed, she sits listening to the clergyman as he proceeds with the
marriage rites and not until all is over and the lovely bride is passing
down the aisle on the arm of her husband, does she dare to raise her
eyes, and as she does so they meet the pure frank gaze of the lovely
girl who smiles in her face as she recognizes the woman to whom she
threw the flower.

The woman sits in her dark corner. Of what can she be thinking? Her head
is bowed and on her face is a look of agony. What a hell has arisen in
her breast! Her thoughts have wandered to her country home which she has
not seen for years.--To the time when she was as pure as the young girl,
who just pronounced her marriage vows; to the mother's blessing as she
saw her young daughter depart for the great city; to the early days when
she first arrived and worked honestly for her bread; to the pride she
felt over the first money she sent home to her old mother. Her thoughts
wandered back to the time when men and women turned to look at her fresh
rosy face on the street, wondering at her beauty which partook so
largely of the wild rose and mountain daisy. Could this be the same
woman, with the hardened face and form covered with rags? It seemed so
long ago. Then came the thoughts of striving with temptation, then the
promises made and broken, of ruin and shame, then of the long illness,
of dreadful poverty, and at last she sees herself as she is, a ruined,