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as if doing so were rather smart conduct than a mean action, for which the poor victim herself, encumbered with a ohild, and not I, had really to pay the penalty, in spite of certain pecuniary aid that was given... . There, that’s the retrospective trouble that I am always unearthing; and you may hardly believe that though so many years have elapsed, and it is all gone by and done with, and she mast be getting on for an old woman now, aa I am for an old man, it really often destroys my sense of self-respect still.”

“Oh, I can understand it. All depends upon the temperament. Thousands of men would have forgotten all about it; so would you, perhaps, if you had married and had a family. Did she ever marry ?”

“I don’t think so. Oh no—she never did. She left Toneborough, and later on appeared under another name at Exonbury, in the next county, where she was not known. It is very seldom that I go down into that part of the country, but in passing through Exonbury on one occasion I learned that she was quite a settled resident there, as a teacher of music or something of the kind. That much I casually heard when I was there two or three yeara ago. But I have never set eyes on her since our original acquaintance, and should not know her if I met her.”

“Did the child live ?” asked the doctor.

“For several years, certainly,” replied hie friend.

“I cannot say if she is living now. It waa a little girl. She might be married by this time as far as years go.”

"And the mother—was she a decent, worthy young woman ?”

“Oh yes; a sensible, quict girl, neither attractive nor unattractive to the ordinary observer; simply commonplace. Her position at the time of our acquaintance was not so good as mine. My father was