"Yes, for we are going to take the pledge too, and we shall keep it, depend upon that." "Suppose you take the pledge and try that first, and if you can keep it till you can wash some of the dirt away, and get some clothes on, then I will marry you." [Illustration: THE TWO PENNY MARRIAGE COUPLE.--_Page 95._] "No; that won't do. I shall get to thinking what a poor, dirty, miserable wretch I am, and how I am living with this woman, who is not a bad woman by nature; and then I will drink, and then she will drink--oh, cursed rum!--and what is to prevent us? But if we were married, my wife, yes, Mr. Pease, my wife, would say, 'Thomas'--she would not say, 'Tom, you dirty brute,'--'don't be tempted;' and who knows but we might be somebody yet--somebody that our own mothers would not be ashamed of?" Here the woman, who had been silent and rather moody, burst into a violent flood of tears, crying, "Mother, mother, I know not whether she is alive or not, and dare not inquire; but if we were married and reformed, I would make her happy once more." "I could no longer resist the appeal," said Mr. P., "and determined to give them a trial. I have married a good many poor, wretched-looking couples, but none that looked quite so much so as this. The man was hatless and shoeless, without coat or vest, with long hair and beard grimed with dirt. He was by trade a bricklayer, one of the best in the city. The woman wore the last remains of a silk bonnet, and something that might pass for shoes, and an old, very old dress, once a rich merino, apparently without any under garments." "Your name is Thomas--Thomas what?" "Elting, sir. Thomas Elting, a good, true name and true man; that is, shall be, if you marry us." "Well, well. I am going to marry you." "Are you? There, Mag, I told you so." "Don't call me Mag. If I am going to be married, it shall be by my right name, the one my mother gave me." "Not Mag? Well, I never knew that." "Now, Thomas, hold your tongue, you talk too much. What is your name?" "Matilda. Must I tell you the other? Yes, I will, and I never will disgrace it. I don't think, I should ever have been as bad if I had kept it. That bad woman who first tempted me to ruin, made me take a false name. They always do that, sir, and so she said I must take another name, I did not know what for then; and so they called me Mag, and that is the name he knows me by, and I never would have told him my right name, only that we are going to get married, and reform." Could they do it--could beings sunk so low, reform? We shall see. "It is a bad thing, sir, for a girl to give up her name unless for that of a good husband. Matilda Morgan. Nobody that is good knows me by any other name in this bad city."