has not the slightest objection to
dust. I rather think it cheers her up to see it about the place.
Obviously she had come in to make conversation. I laid down my pen
with a sigh.

'I yeerd from my young man this morning,' she began. A chill
foreboding swept over me. (I will explain why in a minute.)

'Do you mean the boiler one?' I asked.

[Illustration: 'Do you mean the boiler one?' I asked.]

''Im wot belongs to the Amalgamated Serciety of Boilermakers,' she
corrected with dignity. 'Well, they've moved 'is 'eadquarters from
London to Manchester.'

There was a tense silence, broken only by Elizabeth's hard breathing on
a brass paper-weight ere she polished it with her sleeve.

'If 'e goes to Manchester, there I goes,' she went on; 'I suppose I'd
quite easy get a situation there?'

'Quite easy,' I acquiesced in a hollow voice.

She went out leaving me chill and dejected. Not that I thought for a
moment that I was in imminent danger of losing her. I knew full well
that this was but a ruse on the part of the young man to disembarrass
himself of Elizabeth, and, if he had involved the entire Amalgamated
Society of Boilermakers in the plot, that only proved how desperate he
was.

I have very earnest reasons for wishing that Elizabeth could have a
'settled' young man. You see, as I have previously explained, she
never retains the same one for many weeks at a time. It isn't her
fault, poor girl. She would be as true as steel if she had a chance;
she would cling to any one of them through thick and thin, following
him to the ends of the earth if necessary.

It is they who are fickle, and the excuses they make to break away from
her are both varied and ingenious. During the War, of course, they
always had the pretext of being ordered to the Front at a moment's
notice, and were not, it appears, allowed to write home on account of
the Censor. Elizabeth used to blame Lloyd George for these defects of
organization. Even to this day she is extremely bitter against the
Government.

In fact, she is bitter against every one when her love affairs are not
running smoothly. The entire household suffers in consequence. She is
sullen and obstinate; she is always on the verge of giving notice. And
the way she breaks things in her abstraction is awful. Elizabeth's
illusions and my crockery always get shattered together. My rose-bowl
of Venetian glass got broken when the butcher threw her over for the
housema