"To-day I came across mamma's emerald ring. It reminded me of that day of hunger when I had to pledge it. I paid the odious German her rent, and went across to the little cook-shop at the corner and bought some cold meat. Do I not remember how delicious it tasted! How did I live through those days? I do not know. I sometimes look at my body and wonder how it could have held together under the pressure of so much utter, utter misery. It is bitter to have trusted nobly and to be betrayed remorselessly. It is bitter to feel hunger and poverty and the cruelties of the cold and selfish world. But when these bitternesses are combined, must not the heart be made of steel not to crack and burst?" How long she remained in this state of destitution I could not gather. But in one entry she recorded her amazement on receiving a letter from her grandmother's solicitor, saying that the old lady had died suddenly, intestate, and that, as the next of kin, she inherited the property. In the same memorandum she referred to the number of names she went over before she hit on one to assume. It was her evident fear that her husband would claim her, should he hear of her whereabouts, now that she had come into property. Under the pseudonym of Mrs. Fraser, and hidden in the obscurity of Cliffegate, she believed herself perfectly secure against detection. This at least is my inference, from one or two passages in the diary; it is probably correct. Some entries before that which I am about to transcribe, the following notice, cut from a newspaper, was gummed: "March 12, at Courtland Street, London, Luigi Forli, aged 35, of gastric fever." And beneath it she had written: "Sent me by Mr. Fells in the letter that enclosed my quarter's money." Up to a certain point, from this sentence her diary was singularly rhapsodical. Then a more connected narrative began: "Why did he send me that bouquet? 'Mr. Thorburn's compliments!' He does not know what sort of a woman he sends his compliments to. How I hate compliments! That vile Italian could compliment. Oh! _per Bacco!_ his speech was flowery and sugary as a wedding-cake. What came of it? My eyes, my hair, my mouth, my skin, soon surfeited him--though he ransacked heaven and earth for comparisons. If I chose a male friend he should be blunt and sharp--with a hard tongue that could utter words as ringing in their tones as sovereigns. Such a one would not send me flowers.