in the
Close next Sunday morning at twelve o'clock.

'I want you to see my 'usband,' she said, grinning. 'I'm sure you'll
like him.'

Jane promised to come. On the next day, Saturday, Clem entered the
registry-office in a plain dress, and after a few simple formalities
came forth as Mrs. Snowdon; her usual high colour was a trifle
diminished, and she kept glancing at her husband from under nervously
knitted brows. Still the great event was unknown to the inhabitants of
the Close. There was no feasting, and no wedding-journey; for the
present Mr. and Mrs. Snowdon would take possession of two rooms on the
first floor.

Twenty-four hours later, when the bells of St. James's were ringing
their melodies before service, Clem requested her husband's attention
to something of importance she had to tell him.

Mr. Snowdon had just finished breakfast and was on the point of
lighting his pipe; with the match burning down to his fingers, he
turned and regarded the speaker shrewdly. Clem's face put it beyond
question that at last she was about to make a statement definitely
bearing on the history of the past month. At this moment she was almost
pale, and her eyes avoided his. She stood close to the table, and her
right hand rested near the bread-knife; her left held a piece of paper.

'What is it?' asked Joseph James mildly. 'Go ahead, Clem.'

'You ain't bad-tempered, are you? You said you wasn't.'

'Not I! Best-tempered feller you could have come across. Look at me
smiling.'

His grin was in a measure reassuring, but he had caught sight of the
piece of paper in her hand, and eyed it steadily.

'You know you played mother a trick a long time ago,' Clem pursued,
'when you went off an' left that child on her 'ands.'

'Hollo! What about that?'

'Well, it wouldn't be nothing but fair if someone was to go and play
tricks with _you_--just to pay you off in a friendly sort o' way--see?'

Mr. Snowdon still smiled, but dubiously.

'Out with it!' he muttered. 'I'd have bet a trifle there was some game
on. You're welcome, old girl. Out with it!'

'Did you know as I'd got a brother in 'Stralia--him as you used to know
when you lived here before?'

'You said you didn't know where he was.'

'No more we do--not just now. But he wrote mother a letter about this
time last year, an' there's something in it as I'd like you to see.
You'd better read for yourself.'

Her husband laid down his pipe on the mantel-piece and began to ca