It was a sad story, and he knew it, but there was no other way out of it.
“Dear Frederick,” said the lady, “you always had a feeling heart. I knew there was something wrong, directly I saw you.”
Freddy felt dreadfully hypocritical, but what was he to do? If he had explained to Lady Foggerty that an hour ago he was a Yankee slave captain, with a dear wife Louisa and two beloved children in Florida, and that a few hours before that he was a confectioner in the Borough Road, and that Louisa assisted him in his business. Lady Foggerty would have declined to accept his explanation, militating, as it would have done, with her own experience of him during the last four years. On the whole, I think it was one of those exceptional occasions on which a story is allowable, and having to tell a story, I don't know that he could have pitched upon a better one.
He retired to his dressing-room to prepare for dinner. He found the room luxuriously furnished, with two large easy chairs of the most inviting description, and a comfortable sofa, on which his dress clothes were laid out. He threw himself into one of the chairs, and as he sank in it, he thought to himself as follows:—
“As a speculation, this change has not turned out so badly. I have exchanged a lawless life of continual peril for one of assured prosperity and perfect lawfulness. There are only two drawbacks to it. I am afraid I must be living considerably beyond my income, and I have exchanged a pretty and ladylike wife for a stout and vulgar one. I wonder how I came to marry so
