A young woman of my acquaintance was married to a professional criminal named Joe.  Three months after the wedding he was arrested and “sent up” for two years.  Molly had always been accustomed to many lovers, but she remained faithful to her absent husband for a year.  At the end of that time she obtained a divorce which the state law makes easy for the wife of a convict, and married a man who was “rich and respectable”—­in fact, he owned the small manufacturing establishment in which her mother did the scrubbing.  He moved his bride to another part of town six miles away, provided her with a “steam-heated flat,” furniture upholstered in “cut velvet,” and many other luxuries of which Molly heretofore had only dreamed.  One day as she was wheeling a handsome baby carriage up and down the prosperous street, her brother, who was “Joe’s pal,” came to tell her that Joe was “out,” had come to the old tenement and was “mighty sore” because “she had gone back on him.”  Without a moment’s hesitation Molly turned the baby carriage in the direction of her old home and never stopped wheeling it until she had compassed the entire six miles.  She and Joe rented the old room and went to housekeeping.  The rich and respectable husband made every effort to persuade her to come back, and then another series of efforts to recover his child, before he set her free through a court proceeding.  Joe, however, steadfastly refused to marry her, still “sore” because she had not “stood by.”  As he worked only intermittently, and was too closely supervised by the police to do much at his old occupation, Molly was obliged to support the humble menage by scrubbing in a neighboring lodging house and by washing “the odd shirts” of the lodgers.  For five years, during which time two children were born, when she was constantly subjected to the taunts of her neighbors, and when all the charitable agencies refused to give help to such an irregular household, Molly happily went on her course with no shade of regret or sorrow.  “I’m all right as long as Joe keeps out of the jug,” was her slogan of happiness, low in tone, perhaps, but genuine and “game.”  Her surroundings were as sordid as possible, consisting of a constantly changing series of cheap “furnished rooms” in which the battered baby carriage was the sole witness of better days.  But Molly’s heart was full of courage and happiness, and she was never desolate until her criminal lover was “sent up” again, this time on a really serious charge.

These irregular manifestations form a link between that world in which each one struggles to “live respectable,” and that nether world in which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame.  The girl there who through all tribulation supports her recreant “lover,” or the girl who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion of a man who wishes her to “appear decent,” although he never means to marry her, these are also impressive.