had a sweetheart in my life, or been much with women since my mother
died. Maybe that's why I was so bewitched with Mary, for she had
little ways with her that took your fancy and made you love her
whether you would or no. I found her father was an honest fellow
enough, a fiddler in the some theatre, that he'd taken good care of
Mary till he died, leaving precious little but advice for her to
live on. She'd tried to get work, failed, spent all she had, got
sick, and was going to the devil, as the poor souls can hardly help
doing with so many ready to give them a shove. It's no use trying to
make a bad job better; so the long and short of it was, I thought
she loved me; God knows I loved her, and I married her before the
year was out."

"Show us her picture; I know you've got one; all the fellows have,
though half of 'em won't own up."

"I've only got part of one. I once saved my little girl, and her
picture once saved me."

From an inner pocket Thorn produced a woman's housewife, carefully
untied it, though all its implements were missing but a little
thimble and from one of its compartments took a flattened bullet and
the remnants of a picture.

"I gave her that the first Christmas after I found her. She wasn't
as tidy about her clothes as I liked to see, and I thought if I gave
her a handy thing like this, she'd be willing to sew. But she only
made one shirt for me, and then got tired, so I keep it like an old
fool, as I am. Yes, that's the bit of lead that would have done for
me, if Mary's likeness hadn't been just where it was."