It is probable, notwithstanding her somewhat exaggerated ideas of duty and wifely obedience, that she would have plucked up her courage and left him, even if she must earn her own living as a sempstress, had it not been for one circumstance.

That circumstance was the arrival in the world of her daughter, Isobel.

In some ways this event did not add to her happiness, if that can be added to which does not exist, for the reason that her husband never forgave her because this child, her only one, was not a boy.

Nor did he lose any opportunity of telling her this to her face, as though the matter were one over which she had control.

In others, however, for the first time in her battered little life, she drank deep of the cup of joy.