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LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES

Her great grief in this relation was that her only child, on whose education no expense had been or would be spared, was now old enough to peroeive these deficiencies in hig mother, and not only to see them but to feel irritated at. their existence,

Thus she lived on in the city, and wasted hours in braiding her beautiful hair, till her once apple cheeks waned to pink of the very faintest, Her foot had never regained its natural strength after the accident, and she was mostly obliged to avoid walking altogether, Her hasband bad grown to like Londen for its freedom and ita domestic privacy; but he was twenty years his Sophy’s senior, and had latterly been seized with a serious iliness. On this day, however, he had seemed to be well enough to justify her accompanying her son Randolph to the concert.

II

The next time we get a glimpse of her is when she appears in the mournful attire of a widow.

Mr. Twycott had never rallied, and now lay in a well-packed cemetery to the south of the great city, - where, if all the dead it contained had stood erect and alive, not one would have known him or recognized his name. The boy had dutifully followed him to the prave, and was now again at school.

Throughout these changes Sophy had been treated like the child she was in nature though not in years, She waa left with no control over anything that had

been her husband’s beyond her modest personal income. In his anxiety lest her inexperience should be overreached he had safeguarded with trustees all he possibly could, The completion of the boy’s course