've got to be downright
fond of you, though, of course, you think me common." Mrs. Lopez
would not contradict her, but stooped forward and kissed her cheek.
"I'm downright fond of you, I am," continued Mrs. Parker, snuffling
and sobbing, "but they two men are only together because Mr. Lopez
wants to gamble, and Parker has got a little money to gamble with."
This aspect of the thing was so terrible to Mrs. Lopez that she could
only weep and hide her face. "Now, if you would tell him just the
truth! Tell him what I say, and that I've been a-saying it! Tell him
it's for my children I'm a-speaking, who won't have bread in their
very mouths if their father's squeezed dry like a sponge! Sure, if
you'd tell him this, he wouldn't go on!" Then she paused a moment,
looking up into the other woman's face. "He'd have some bowels of
compassion;--wouldn't he now?"

"I'll try," said Mrs. Lopez.

"I know you're good and kind-hearted, my dear. I saw it in your
eyes from the very first. But them men, when they get on at
money-making,--or money-losing, which makes 'em worse,--are like
tigers clawing one another. They don't care how many they kills, so
that they has the least bit for themselves. There ain't no fear of
God in it, nor yet no mercy, nor ere a morsel of heart. It ain't
what I call manly,--not that longing after other folks' money. When
it's come by hard work, as I tell Sexty,--by the very sweat of his
brow,--oh,--it's sweet as sweet. When he'd tell me that he'd made his
three pound, or his five pound, or, perhaps, his ten pound in a day,
and'd calculate it up, how much it'd come to if he did that every
day, and where we could go to, and what we could do for the children,
I loved to hear him talk about his money. But now--! why, it's
altered the looks of the man altogether. It's just as though he was
a-thirsting for blood."

Thirsting for blood! Yes, indeed. It was the very idea that had
occurred to Mrs. Lopez herself when her husband had bade her to "get
round her father." No;--it certainly was not manly. There certainly
was neither fear of God in it, nor mercy. Yes;--she would try. But as
for bowels of compassion in Ferdinand Lopez--; she, the young wife,
had already seen enough of her husband to think that he was not to be
moved by any prayers on that side. Then the two women bade each other
farewell. "Parker has been talking of my going to Manchester Square,"
said Mrs. Parker, "but I shan't. What'd I be in Manchester Sq