‘Let me see. I must find some of my conversations with your mother. “June 2. Read prayers. Breakfast. My rasher was cut too thick, and the frying was not up to cook’s usual mark. Mem.: must speak to cook about the bacon. Read a leading article on indirect taxation in _Times_, and felt my store of knowledge increased. Saw cook. Decided on a lamb cutlet for lunch, and a slice of salmon and roast chicken for dinner. Sent for cook five minutes afterwards, and ordered sole instead of salmon. I had salmon the day before yesterday.” Dear me, I don’t see your poor mother’s name in the first week of June,’ said the old lady, turning over the leaves. ‘Here it comes, a little later, on the fifteenth. Now you shall hear your mother’s own words, faithfully recorded on the day she spoke them. And yet there are people who would ridicule a lonely old woman for keeping a diary,’ added Mrs. Malcolm, with mild self-approval. ‘I feel very grateful to you for having kept one,’ said Laura. ‘June 15. Stephen brought his wife to lunch with me, by appointment. I ordered a nice little luncheon; filleted sole, cutlets, a duckling, peas, new potatoes, cherry tart, and a custard. The poor woman does not often enjoy a good dinner, and no doubt my luncheon would be her dinner. But my thoughtfulness was thrown away. The poor thing was looking pale and worn when she came, and she hardly ate a morsel. Even the duckling did not tempt her, though she owned it was the first she had seen this year. After luncheon Stephen went to the City, to keep an appointment, as he told us, and his wife and I spent a quiet hour in my drawing-room. We had a long talk, which turned, as usual, on her domestic troubles. She calls this Captain Desmond her husband’s evil genius, and says he is a blight upon her life. He is not an old friend of Stephen’s, so there is no excuse for that foolish fellow’s infatuation. They met him first at Boulogne, last year; and from that time to this he and Stephen have been inseparable. Poor Laura declares that this Desmond belongs to a horrid, gambling, drinking set, and that he is the cause of Stephen’s ruin. “We were poor when we first went to Boulogne,” she said, with tears in her eyes, poor child, “but we could just manage to live respectably, and for the first year we were very happy. But from the day my husband made the acquaintance of Captain Desmond things began to go badly. Stephen resumed his old habits of billiard-playing, cards, and late hours. He had grown fond of his home, and reconciled to a quiet, domestic life. Darling Laura’s pretty ways and sweet little talk amused and interested him. But after Captain Desmond came upon the scene Stephen seldom spent an evening at home. I know that it is wicked to hate people,” the poor thing said, in her simple way, “but I cannot help hating this bad man.”’ ‘Poor mother!’ sighed Laura, touched to the heart by this picture of domestic misery.