is hebdomadal use its proper
function was to hold dirty dishes and soiled clothes for the washing.
And indeed this had at one time been _Mary's_ own view (though
tempered by vague aspirations towards a softer existence, as we might
have guessed from the elegance of her brown shoes) before a year of
the higher life had shaken her content. Let us go back.

[Illustration: Mr. MCKINNEL (_Ezra Sheppard_) to Miss MAY BLAYNEY
(_Mary Sheppard_). "You've been lying again! You know how I hate it--I
told you so in this very theatre when we were playing in _Between
Sunset and Dawn_."]

_Ezra Sheppard_ was by profession a market-gardener, and his favourite
recreation was preaching in a barn. We have the picture of a frugal
but happy interior, with a new-born infant (_off_). The trouble began
with an offer made to his wife of a situation as foster-mother to
the baby (also _off_) of a neighbouring Countess. The wages were to
be high and she was to be delicately entreated; but there were hard
conditions. She was not to hold communication with her husband or
child for twelve months. I am sorry to say that _Mary_ did not flinch
from these conditions quite so much as I could have hoped. _Ezra_,
however, rejected them for her with manly scorn, until he was reminded
that the high wages would speed the end of his own ambitions--namely,
to replace his barn with a conventicle of brick. So he let his wife
loose into Eden with the Serpent.

And now we see _Mary_ seated in the lap of luxury, with soft gowns to
wear, and peaches to eat and instant slaves at her beck. You will, of
course, expect her virtue to fall an easy prey; but you will be wrong.
The Earl's attitude is pleasantly parental, and the attentions of
the Countess's cavalier--an author--are confined to the extraction
of copy. And anyhow _Mary's_ instincts are sound. Now and again she
remembers to pity the loneliness of her husband, whose cottage light
she can see from the window of her bower; and once, by a ruse, she
gets him to break the conditions and visit her; but when he learns
that the invitation came from her, and not, as alleged, from the
Countess, his conscience will not permit him to take advantage of his
chance. So you have the unusual spectacle of a true and loving wife
pleading in vain for the embraces of her true and loving husband.

But if her virtue, in the technical sense, remained intact, the
Serpent had overfed her with _pommes de luxe_. On her return
home--whe