big, heavy, and oversated. Her uncle--her father's brother--came to her
mother, and told her certain plain facts about this man, and his father
and grandfather before him, and charged her to tell the child what she
would be doing if she married him. Perhaps if the uncle had gone to the
girl herself, it might have done some good--perhaps it wouldn't have--you
see she was so tired of being poor that she thought nothing else
mattered. Anyway, he felt a woman could break these ugly facts to a young
girl better than a man, and he was right. Only, you see, the mother never
told at all; not that she really feared that her daughter would be
foolish and play false to her excellent training--but, still, it was just
as well to be on the safe side. The millionaire was quite mad about his
little fiancee; he was perfectly willing to pay--in advance--all the
expenses for a big, fashionable wedding, with twelve bridesmaids and a
wedding-breakfast at Sherry's; he was eager to load her with jewels, and
settle a large sum of money upon her, and take her around the world for
her honeymoon journey; he loved her little soft tricks of speech, the shy
way in which she dropped her eyes, the curve of the simple white dress
that fell away from her neck when she leaned towards him; and though she
saw him drink--and drank with him more than once before her marriage--he
took excellent care that it was not until several nights afterwards that
she found him--really drunk; and they must have been married two months
before she began to--really comprehend what she had done.

"There isn't much more to tell--that can be told. The woman who sells
herself--with or without a wedding ring--has probably always existed, and
probably always will; but I doubt whether any one of them ever has
told--or ever will--the full price which she pays in her turn. She
deserves all the censure she gets, and more--but, oh! she does deserve a
little pity with it! When this girl had been married nearly a year, she
heard her husband coming upstairs one night long after midnight, in a