me out in the fall. But I'd
rather scratch on, and gather up a little for Sophy here, before I stop
work."

He patted Sophy's tanned little hand on the table, as if beating some
soft tune. Holmes folded up the bills. Even this man could spare time
out of his hard, stingy life to love, and be loved, and to be generous!
But then he had no higher aim, knew nothing better.

"Well," said Pike, rising, "in case you take th' mill, Mr. Holmes, I
hope we'll be agreeable. I'll strive to do my best,"--in the old
fawning manner, to which Holmes nodded a curt reply.

The man stopped for Sophy to gather up her bits of broken "chayney"
with which she was making a tea-party on the table, and went
down-stairs.

Towards evening Holmes went out,--not going through the narrow passage
that led to the offices, but avoiding it by a circuitous route. If it
cost him any pain to think why he did it, he showed none in his calm,
observant face. Buttoning up his coat as he went: the October sunset
looked as if it ought to be warm, but he was deathly cold. On the
street the young doctor beset him again with bows and news: Cox was his
name, I believe; the one, you remember, who had such a Talleyrand nose
for ferreting out successful men. He had to bear with him but for a
few moments, however. They met a crowd of workmen at the corner, one
of whom, an old man freshly washed, with honest eyes looking out of
horn spectacles, waited for them by a fire-plug. It was Polston, the
coal-digger,--an acquaintance, a far-off kinsman of Holmes, in fact.

"Curious person making signs to you, yonder," said Cox; "hand, I
presume."

"My cousin Polston. If you do not know him, you'll excuse me?"

Cox sniffed the air down the street, and twirled his rattan, as he
went. The coal-digger was abrupt and distant in his greeting, going
straight to business.

"I will keep yoh only a minute, Mr. Holmes"----

"Stephen," corrected Holmes.

The old man's face warmed.

"Stephen, then," holding out his hand, "sence old times dawn't shame
yoh, Stephen. That's hearty, now. It's only a wured I want, but it's
immediate. Concernin' Joe Yare,--Lois's father, yoh know? He's back."

"Back? I saw him to-day, following me in the mill. His hair is gray?
I think it was he."

"No doubt. Yes, he's aged fast, down in the lock-up; goin' fast to the
end. Feeble, pore-like. It's a bad life, Joe Yare's; I wish 'n' 't
would be better to the end"----

He stopped