She was the one thing feminine that had come across his path. He had stared at it like a new Adam. His original Eden lay at the back of the houses, and was divided by a low wall. Here, first, he used to lean, in his shirt-sleeves, pipe in mouth, on the late summer evenings, and exchange remarks with her as she removed the washing from the clothes’ lines, or idly took the air. How he had drifted into his present relations he would have found it difficult to determine. It never occurred to him to do so, his mind being filled with other things. By degrees he had familiarised himself with the fact of her existence. Then it seemed natural that he should marry her. In his social sphere a wife formed a necessary part of everyday existence. And then she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. When he kissed the pouting lips, all kinds of strange tinglings ran through him. That was proof positive of his being in love. So one day he called on her father, a retired captain of a Thames steamboat, and obtained his consent to the marriage. He was earning good wages, had even a little put by. The old man, whose tastes were not of a domestic order, and who found a daughter an expensive luxury, got solemnly drunk all by himself to celebrate the occasion. Goddard considered him an abandoned old ruffian, as soon as he came to know more about him, and conceiving a tender pity for Lizzie, longed to get her out of his clutches. It was hard work to carry on his trade, his self-education, his political pursuits, and his lovemaking, all at the same time. The last was distinctly pleasant, but it was sadly lacking in advantages from a utilitarian point of view. Until he had fallen in love with her over that back-garden wall, he had scouted the idea of “messing about” with girls as a criminal waste of precious hours Even now he felt somewhat guilty. He longed to be married, to settle down, to have Lizzie’s pretty face at his fireside definitely assured to him for the rest of his days, and to see before him a peaceful, undisturbed stretch of years wherein to further with all his heart and energies the great movement in which he was absorbed. Perhaps Lizzie was right. A little previous practice in the art of love would have been for his good; but in a widely different sense from that which came within Lizzie’s philosophy.