y no means
facile in social intercourse. And Meshach had rudely forgotten the
affecting scene! He felt diminished, and saw in the old bachelor a
personification of the blunt independent spirit of the Five Towns.

* * * * *

'Milly's late to-day,' said Hannah to her brother, timorously breaking
the silence which ensued.

'Milly?' questioned Twemlow.

'Millicent her proper name is,' Hannah said quickly, 'but we call her
Milly. My nephew's youngest.'

'Yes, of course,' Twemlow commented, when the Myatt family-tree had been
sketched for him by the united effort of brother and sister, 'I
recollect now you told me in Liverpool that Mr. Stanway was married. Who
did he marry?'

Meshach Myatt pushed back his chair and stood up. 'John catched on to
Knight's daughter, the doctor at Turnhill,' he said, reaching to a
cigar-cabinet on the sideboard. 'Best thing he ever did in his life.
John's among the better end of folk now. People said it were a
come-down for her, but Leonora isn't the sort that comes down. She's got
blood in her. _That_!' He snapped his fingers. 'She's a good bred 'un.
Old Knight's father came from up York way. Ah! She's a cut above Twemlow
& Stanway, is Leonora.'

Twemlow smiled at this persistence of respect for caste.

'Have a weed,' said Meshach, offering him a cigar. 'You'll find it all
right; it's a J.S. Murias. Yes,' he resumed, 'maybe you don't remember
old Knight's sister as had that far house up at Hillport? When she died
she left it to Leonora, and they've lived there this dozen year and
more.'

'Well, I guess she's got a handsome name to her,' Twemlow remarked
perfunctorily, rising and leaving Hannah alone at the table.

'And she's the handsomest woman in the Five Towns: that I do know,' said
Meshach as, in the grand manner of a connoisseur, he lighted his cigar.
'And her was forty, day afore yesterday,' he added with caustic
emphasis.

'Meshach!' cried Hannah, 'for shame of yourself!' Then she turned to
Twemlow smiling and blushing a little. 'Oughtn't he? Eh, but Mrs. John's
a great favourite of my brother's. And I'm sure her girls are very good
and attentive. Not a day but one or another of them calls to see me, not
a day. Eh, if they missed a day I should think the world was coming to
an end. And I'm expecting Milly to-day. What's made the dear child so
late----'

'I will say this for John,' asserted Meshach, as though the little
housewife had not been