THOSE early days of married life were very gay. We entertained tremendously. We went out enormously. We lived in a perfect social whirl. I enjoyed the privilege of wearing pretty frocks at luncheons, dinners, and dances; of riding in the morning, and driving a Park phaeton and pair of cobs in the afternoon, followed by two brown collies, given me by Sir John Kinloch of Kinloch. One, “Ruby” by name, went everywhere with me, and, clinging to her coat as she perambulated round the dining-room, my babies learnt to walk. They were a pretty sight, those two small boys in Lord Fauntleroy suits, tumbling about on the hearth with the long-haired red collies.

How I loved going to Ascot and Goodwood, taking people down, or being taken down, always feeling I could help to make things “go” and amuse people. Then the dinners; we had eight or ten to dine every Sunday night, quite informally, but as we usually lunched out and were away all day, we used to do this in the evenings. All sorts of charming people came, and I never enjoyed myself more than in the capacity of a hostess. Alec sang well, and we collected good musicians about us; Madame Lemmens-Sherrington, Madame Antoinette Sterling, George Grossmith, Corney Grain, Eugene Oudin, all went to the piano in turn.

My husband was member of a dozen golf clubs, including St. Andrews, Wimbledon, and Sandwich; and we took houses for odd months on different links for the benefit of the children, who were looked after by two excellent nurses, while we ran down to see them for week-ends or slipped over to Paris for a few days.

We went to shooting parties in the autumn, to race-meetings in the spring, were members of Sandown and Hurst Park, were constantly at Ranelagh or Hurlingham, kept a couple of boats on the river (the river was the height of fashion in the ’nineties) and generally enjoyed ourselves.

As a rule, we always lunched at the old Harley-Street house on Sundays when we were in town, went to all the theatres, and, in fact, lived a thoroughly happy, gay, social life, with no thought for the morrow.

I still kept up my painting, did a quantity of embroidery from my own designs for bedspreads, sideboard cloths, babies’ bonnets, or lapels of dresses; once and again wrote a little, but the business of existence was more amusement, and fun and spending, rather than making money and saving.

Everything seemed gay and bright and I found life one continual joy.

Let Youth be happy and gay. It is the time to be irresponsible and light-hearted. Years bring soberness. Life makes us wonder if the game is worth the struggle. I suppose it comes to all of us at times to wish to run away and hide ourselves as Tolstoi did. The rebellion of youth against home restraint returns again in later years as the rebellion of age against life’s thraldom.

And then, when the sky was blue, the bolt fell. We had been married eight years.

Suddenly all was changed. My husband had joined a syndicate. The syndicate failed. He had lost—lost heavily. Lost his capital.

Immediately our household was reduced to modest limits. Our drawing-room was shut up, three servants dismissed, the horses sold. For the first time in my life I was without a carriage. But, as Alec was sure of earning money again shortly, we did not part with anything which this income would make possible to keep.

Then a wonderful thing happened. A very dear old friend came to me.

“Ethel,” he said, “I am more than sorry, my dear child, for all that has happened, but your husband will go back to business and all will be well; meantime put that in your bank to tide you over and keep things going as a weapon to fight fate.”

It was a cheque for two thousand pounds. Imagine my amazement, imagine my pride at having a friend willing to make such a sacrifice; but, of course, I did not take it. I could not take it, although I thanked him from the bottom of my heart and promised if the necessity really came I would go to him.

To give in one’s lifetime is true generosity, to bequeath after death is often merely convenience.

But my husband never smiled again. Overpowered by grief at the position in which he had placed his wife and children, he died six months later in his sleep; died simply of a broken heart.

He was followed on the same journey only a few weeks later by my father, who passed away quite as suddenly, with the ink still wet on the paper of an article he was writing for the Lancet. He never finished his article, neither had he altered an old will as he had intended.

Three shocks had thus each followed the other in quick succession without time to recover from one before the next came, and so in little more than half a brief year the once happy daughter, wife, and mother stood alone, stunned, reduced to comparative poverty, with children clinging to her skirts. The two breadwinners of the family had gone out almost together.

There was not time to think and mourn and let precious moments go by. Something must be done. There was I with about as much to live on as I used to spend on my dress.

Then my old dear friend came back to me.

“I admired your pride and your pluck six months ago,” he said, “when you had a husband beside you to fight for you. But now, my dear child, you are alone and you have the children to think of. I wish you to go to your bank and put that two thousand pounds to your credit; and, more than that, I wish to adopt you as my daughter.”

It was all so bewildering, so strange. I had known him all my life. He was one of my father’s oldest friends. His wife had always been charming to me and she had left me bits of jewellery when she died; but again I had to refuse. He had relations. I could not claim that privilege. Still he persisted.

“You have always been like a daughter to me—to us—and now I want to claim the right to provide for you and your children.”

Still I refused. I promised again to go to him if ever I was in real need; but I took nothing.

When he died others inherited all he had.

There are only two crimes in Society: one to be poor, the other to be found out.

It seems to me that everything in life is relative. If one is born poor, one does not know what it is to be rich, and if one is rich, one does not understand the responsibilities of strawberry leaves, and strawberry leaves do not comprehend the difficulties of a throne.

If things change, if one goes up in the world, one naturally assimilates ideas and ways by merely taking on a little more of what one already has; but if one slides back in life, one has to give up what is part and parcel of one’s very existence. I was not born in a back street or a country cottage or a suburban villa—in either of these I might have lived in simple comfort on my small income—but that would not have been me.

Bills came in on every side. Bills haunted me. Bills were nothing in my old life when they were paid up every quarter; but even a few hundreds meant sleepless nights of haunting fear to me now.

I took up my pen feverishly. Nine years of married life were ended. All was changed. Still, during those first few months of shock, my father yet lived, and I knew I could rely on his help, so it was not until the late autumn of 1896 that I realised my position in all its cruelty.

Pause, readers, not to give me your sympathy, not to shed tears on what is past, but to think of the future; pause and think, and pave the paths for your daughters, wives, mothers, and sisters by settlements.

Yes, settlements. It is a cruel thing to let a girl leave a home without a safeguard in proportion to the income of her family. It is a crueller thing to bring boys and girls into the world with insufficient provision for their education and maintenance.

This little book of a woman’s work will have served a good end if one father, husband, son, or brother, sees what opportunities were lost by no adequate provision being made for its author, when this could so easily have been done. Settlements of some sort are as necessary as the marriage ring, a health certificate is as important as the marriage lines.

I feel strongly that every child born should have some kind of provision made for its education and maintenance and to give it a start in life. Both boys and girls should be treated exactly alike.

The unexpected change in my position showed me how kind the world can be; how good and generous the bulk of humanity is. There are certainly exceptions, and those generally where they should not be. But one does not think of them: one turns to the geniality and little acts of thoughtfulness that day by day come from friends in the truest sense of the word, and I can only wish that mine could realise to what extent they have greased the wheels of these working years. Little kindnesses are like flowers by the roadside or sun-gleams on a rainy day.