All too late his wife saw the blunder she had made, and tried to wean him back to sobriety. Failing in that, her pride and cunning came to the rescue. She smothered her tears and veiled her sorrows before the world, hiding at the same time her husband's infirmity as much as possible from the public eye. The lot was hard, her punishment severe, but she braced herself to it with a woman's patient courage, and straightway opened her heart to new hopes and dreams of better days to come. Henceforth the aim of her life must be to get her four daughters settled in life. Alas! the settlements would need to be humbler now than those she had once dreamed of. The tables of the great ones of the parish were not now open to them as they had been before her money had gone, and before Codling took to drink. There was not even a barrack in the neighbourhood, with its successive bevies of foolish young officers to prey upon--only Leamington with its dawdling crowds of nobodies. Ah, well, the most had to be made of the opportunities that offered. These being the circumstances of the family at the vicarage, this the mental attitude of Mrs. Codling, who could wonder that her soured spirit rose once more within her with a feeling akin to gratitude towards a merciful providence, when Captain Wiseman came in her way? Despair had sometimes nearly marked her down for his prey, and lo! here was the Prince of the fairy tale. Dresses were forthwith obtained for the girls such as they had not worn for years, for happily their mother had still a few jewels left which she could pawn or sell. And being handsome girls--two of them particularly so--they soon attracted a good deal of the roving guardsman's attention. At first a little flirtation with them gave a pleasant variety to his existence, rendered just a little monotonous by the labour of stalking down Sally Wanless. The shrewd mother contrived that his opportunities should be frequent. The old pony chaise was furbished up anew and the girls took to driving the fat, wheezy, old pony about the country in a manner new and far from agreeable to it. In this way they managed to cross the Captain's trail much after his own style with Sally. During that winter he hunted a good deal, and the Codling girls developed an enthusiasm for the sport which made them haunt meets far and near. Months before the Captain flung Sarah from him he had thus become familiar with the sight of these girls, and no sooner was she well destroyed than he began to develop a preference for the youngest but one--Adelaide or Adela Codling. Miss Adela was a buxom, roystering, kind of girl, of handsome features, light brains, and abundant animal spirits. Already, though but nineteen, she had a reputation amongst her acquaintances of being what the pump-room gossip of Leamington styled "fastish." She affected _outre_ fashion in dress, and was always ready to lead a revolt against established proprieties. To play the boisterous hoyden at a harvest home or