"And to-morrow you must unpick my green dinner-dress. I intend to have it dyed." "Yes, aunt," repeated Mrs. Burnside, as she went to the door. "Yes, aunt," was what she was obliged to say all day long; to have said "No, aunt," would have been a complete reversal of all the Victoria Square traditions. * * * * * To do good by stealth is unfashionable nowadays, and when Miss Waller, to her great disgust, found herself obliged to offer a home to her widowed niece and her child, she took care that all Beachbourne should know and extol her generosity. "How delightful for Mrs. Burnside to have such a luxurious home!" remarked many people who saw the aunt and niece that afternoon, gorgeously arrayed; for it was known that, but for Miss Waller, May would have been obliged to earn a living. Many a tired governess or poor shop-assistant looked enviously at the pretty girl dashing by in the smart carriage--the pretty girl who was dressed in silk and chiffon, but had only sixpence in her pocket! The daughter of a struggling country doctor, May had fallen in love at eighteen with a handsome but dissipated assistant of her father's, who persuaded her into a clandestine marriage. She knew Arthur Burnside was far from steady, but it seemed noble and heroic to marry him that she might undertake his reformation. Poor foolish child! she failed to realise that if a man is too weak to stand alone, without some woman to prop him up continually, the chances are that he will bring ruin upon both. May shuddered to recall those four miserable years of ill-treatment, disgrace, and privation, which ended in the death of her husband, and left her absolutely penniless. Her father was dead, his other children were scattered, and, but for Miss Waller, she and Doris might have starved.