here?'

'Well, sir, it was like this, you see. My wife, she's north-country, she
is, comes from Yorkshire; sometimes she'd used to say to me, "Passon
'ee ain't much good, and passon 'ee ain't much harm. 'Ee's no more good
nor more 'arm, so fer as _I_ can see, nor a chip in a basin o'
parritch." And that was just about it; sir,' said the old man, pleased
for the hundredth time with his wife's bygone flight of metaphor and his
own exact memory of it.

As to the rector's tendance of his child, his tone was very cool and
guarded.

'It do seem strange, sir, as nor he nor Doctor Grimes 'ull let her have
anything to put a bit of flesh on her, nothin' but them messy things as
he brings--milk an' that. An' the beef jelly--lor, such a trouble!
Missis Elsmere, he tells my wife, strains all the stuff through a cloth,
she do; never seed anythin' like it, nor my wife neither. People is
clever nowadays,' said the speaker dubiously. Langham realised that, in
this quarter of his parish at any rate, his friend's pastoral vanity, if
he had any, would not find much to feed on. Nothing, to judge from this
specimen at least, greatly affected an inhabitant of Mile End.
Gratitude, responsiveness, imply health and energy, past or present. The
only constant defence which the poor have against such physical
conditions as those which prevailed at Mile End is apathy.

As they came down the dilapidated steps at the cottage door, Robert drew
in with avidity a long draught of the outer air.

'Ugh!' he said with a sort of groan, 'that bedroom! Nothing gives one
such a sense of the toughness of human life as to see a child
recovering, actually recovering, in such a pestilential den! Father,
mother, grown-up son, girl of thirteen, and grandchild, all huddled in a
space just fourteen feet square. Langham!' and he turned passionately on
his companion, 'what defence can be found for a man who lives in a place
like Murewell Hall, and can take money from human beings for the use of
a sty like that?'

'Gently, my friend. Probably the squire, being the sort of recluse he
is, has never seen the place, or, at any rate, not for years, and knows
nothing about it!'

'More shame for him!'

'True in a sense,' said Langham, a little drily; 'but as you _may_ want
hereafter to make excuses for your man, and he _may_ give you occasion,
I wouldn't begin by painting him to yourself any blacker than need be.'

Robert laughed, sighed and acquiesced. 'I am a hot-hea