ive floors from basement to attic,
and a couple of rooms upon each, like most little houses in London; but
this one had latterly been the scene of an equally undistinguished drama
of real life, upon which the curtain was even now descending. Although a
third was whispered by the world, the persons of this drama were really
only two.

Rachel Minchin, before the disastrous step which gave her that surname,
was a young Australian lady whose apparent attractions were only
equalled by her absolute poverty; that is to say, she had been born at
Heidelberg, near Melbourne, of English parents more gentle than
practical, who soon left her to fight the world and the devil with no
other armory than a good face, a fine nature, and the pride of any
heiress. It is true that Rachel also had a voice; but there was never
enough of it to augur an income. At twenty, therefore, she was already a
governess in the wilds, where women are as scarce as water, but where
the man for Rachel did not breathe. A few years later she earned a berth
to England as companion to a lady; and her fate awaited her on board.

Mr. Minchin had reached his prime in the underworld, of which he also
was a native, without touching affluence, until his fortieth year.
Nevertheless, he was a travelled man, and no mere nomad of the bush. As
a mining expert he had seen much life in South Africa as well as in
Western Australia, but at last he was to see more in Europe as a
gentleman of means. A wife had no place in his European scheme; a
husband was the last thing Rachel wanted; but a long sea voyage, an
uncongenial employ, and the persistent chivalry of a handsome,
entertaining, self-confident man of the world, formed a combination as
fatal to her inexperience as that of so much poverty, pride, and beauty
proved to Alexander Minchin. They were married without ceremony on the
very day that they arrived in England, where they had not an actual
friend between them, nor a relative to whom either was personally known.
In the beginning this mattered nothing; they had to see Europe and enjoy
themselves; that they could do unaided; and the bride did it only the
more thoroughly, in a sort of desperation, as she realized that the
benefits of her marriage were to be wholly material after all.

In the larger life of cities, Alexander Minchin was no longer the idle
and good-humored cavalier to whom Rachel had learned to look for
unfailing consideration at sea. The illustrative incid