n _she_ was about. Somehow, the house and the lackeys and
all the rest of it seemed to be a more natural sort of thing when _she_
was the centre of it. It frightens the old woman now she's gone. She
likes to get away from it. Poor old Susan! A little country inn with
herself as landlady and me fussing about behind the bar; that was always
her ambition, poor old girl!"

"You will be visiting them," I suggested, "and they will be coming to
stop with you."

He shook his head. "They won't want me, and it isn't my game to hamper
them. I never mix out of my class. I've always had sense enough for
that."

I laughed, wishing to cheer him, though I knew he was right. "Surely
your daughter belongs to your own class," I replied.

"Do you think so?" he asked, with a grin. "That's not a pretty
compliment to her. She was my child when she used to cling round my
neck, while I made the sausages, calling me her dear old pig. It didn't
trouble her then that I dropped my aitches and had a greasy skin. I was
a Whitechapel butcher, and she was a Whitechapel brat. I could have kept
her if I'd liked, but I was set upon making a lady of her, and I did it.
But I lost my child. Every time she came back from school I could see
she despised me a little more. I'm not blaming her; how could she help
it? I was making a lady of her, teaching her to do it; though there were
moments when I almost hated her, felt tempted to snatch her back to me,
drag her down again to my level, make her my child again, before it was
too late. Oh, it wasn't all unselfishness; I could have done it. She
would have remained my class then, would have married my class, and her
children would have been my class. I didn't want that. Everything's got
to be paid for. I got what I asked for; I'm not grumbling at the price.
But it ain't cheap."

He rose and knocked the ashes from his pipe. "Ring the bell, Paul, will
you?" he said. "Let's have some light and something to drink. Don't take
any notice of me. I've got the hump to-night."

It was a minute or two before the lamp came. He put his arm upon my
shoulder, leaning upon me somewhat heavily.

"I used to fancy sometimes, Paul," he said, "that you and she might have
made a match of it. I should have been disappointed for some things. But
you'd have been a bit nearer to me, you two. It never occurred to you,
that, I suppose?"

CHAPTER VII.

HOW PAUL SET FORTH UPON A QUEST.

Of old Deleglise's Sunday suppers, which,