st bit in the world tedious, and by the sarcastic has been likened to
a cemetery. And it seemed to symbolize Annie's life for her, in its
cramped and pruned and smoky regularity. She began to look upon the Five
Towns as a sort of prison from which she could never, never escape.

I say she was extraordinarily happy; and yet she was unhappy too. In a
word, she resembled all the rest of us--she had "somehow expected
something different" from what life actually gave her. She was
astonished that her William Henry seemed to be so content with things as
they were. Far, now, from any apprehension of his extravagance, she
wished secretly that he would be a little more dashing. He did not seem
to feel the truth that, though prudence is all very well, you can only
live your life once, and that when you are dead you are dead. He did not
seem to understand the value of pleasure. Few people in the Five Towns
did seem to understand the value of pleasure. He had no distractions
except his pipe. Existence was a harsh and industrious struggle, a
series of undisturbed daily habits. No change, no gaiety, no freak!
Grim, changeless monotony!

And once, in July, William Henry abandoned even his pipe for ten days.
Work, and therefore pay, had been irregular, but that was not in itself
a reason sufficient for cutting off a luxury that cost only a shilling a
week. It was the Going Away Club that swallowed up the tobacco money.
Nothing would induce William Henry to get into arrears with his payments
to that mysterious Club. He would have sacrificed not merely his pipe,
but his dinner--nay, he would have sacrificed his wife's dinner--to the
greedy maw of that Club. Annie hated the Club nearly as passionately as
she loved William Henry.

Then on the first of August (a Tuesday) William Henry came into the
house and put down twenty sovereigns in a row on the kitchen table. He
did not say much, being (to Annie's mild regret) of a secretive
disposition.

Annie had never seen so much money in a row before.

"What's that?" she said weakly.

"That?" said William Henry. "That's th' going away money."

II

A flat barrow at the door, a tin trunk and two bags on the barrow, and a
somewhat ragged boy between the handles of the barrow! The curtains
removed from the windows, and the blinds drawn! A double turn of the key
in the portal! And away they went, the ragged boy having previously spit
on his hands in order to get a grip of the barrow. Thus