“It was impossible to believe that.  Common or not, I put my case to him over again.

“‘I have bought the furniture with my own money, Sir,’ I says.  ’It’s mine, honestly come by, with bill and receipt to prove it.  They are taking it away from me by force, to sell it against my will.  Don’t tell me that’s the law.  This is a Christian country.  It can’t be.’

“‘My good creature,’ says he, ’you are a married woman.  The law doesn’t allow a married woman to call any thing her own—­unless she has previously (with a lawyer’s help) made a bargain to that effect with her husband before marrying him.  You have made no bargain.  Your husband has a right to sell your furniture if he likes.  I am sorry for you; I can’t hinder him.’

“I was obstinate about it.  ‘Please to answer me this, Sir,’ I says.  ’I’ve been told by wiser heads than mine that we all pay our taxes to keep the Queen and the Parliament going; and that the Queen and the Parliament make laws to protect us in return.  I have paid my taxes.  Why, if you please, is there no law to protect me in return?’

“‘I can’t enter into that,’ says he.  ’I must take the law as I find it; and so must you.  I see a mark there on the side of your face.  Has your husband been beating you?  If he has, summon him here I can punish him for that.’

“‘How can you punish him, Sir?’ says I.

“‘I can fine him,’ says he.  ‘Or I can send him to prison.’

“‘As to the fine,’ says I, ’he can pay that out of the money he gets by selling my furniture.  As to the prison, while he’s in it, what’s to become of me, with my money spent by him, and my possessions gone; and when he’s out of it, what’s to become of me again, with a husband whom I have been the means of punishing, and who comes home to his wife knowing it?  It’s bad enough as it is, Sir,’ says I.  ’There’s more that’s bruised in me than what shows in my face.  I wish you good-morning.’”

6.

“When I got back the furniture was gone, and my husband was gone.  There was nobody but the landlord in the empty house.  He said all that could be said—­kindly enough toward me, so far as I was concerned.  When he was gone I locked my trunk, and got away in a cab after dark, and found a lodging to lay my head in.  If ever there was a lonely, broken-hearted creature in the world, I was that creature that night.

“There was but one chance of earning my bread—­to go to the employment offered me (under a man cook, at a club).  And there was but one hope—­the hope that I had lost sight of my husband forever.

“I went to my work—­and prospered in it—­and earned my first quarter’s wages.  But it’s not good for a woman to be situated as I was; friendless and alone, with her things that she took a pride in sold away from her, and with nothing to look forward to in her life to come.  I was regular in my attendance at chapel; but I think my heart began to get hardened, and my