to a man in his perpetual state of struggle
to make ends meet. But he had a suspicion that Mrs. Ormonde desired to
get the girl away from him that Bessie might be, as he would have
phrased it, perverted to the debasing superstition of Christianity.

Mrs. Ormonde had interviews with him, and it helped her to understand
the man. She soon found out what it was that troubled him, and went
directly to the point with an assurance that no attempt whatever should
be made to prejudice Bessie against her father's views. Any printed
matter he chose to send her would be uninterfered with. Another woman
would have thought Bunce a mere bear when she parted with him, but Mrs.
Ormonde had that blessed gift of divination which comes of vast
charity; she did not misjudge him. And he in turn, though he went away
with his face still set in the look of half-aggressive pride which it
had assumed when he entered, found in a day or two that Mrs. Ormonde's
tones made a memory as pleasant as any he had. He felt a little
uncomfortable in remembering how ungraciously he had borne himself.

Another woman there was who had begun to exercise influence of an
indefinable kind on the rugged fellow, a woman whom he saw a good deal
of; and to whom he had grown accustomed to look for a good deal of
help. This was Miss Totty Nancarrow. Totty was no slight help with
little Nelly, and even with Jack. For the former she ceased to be 'Miss
Nanco,' and became 'Totty' simply; to Jack she was a most estimable
acquaintance, who never grudged flattering wonder at his school
achievements, even though they involved no more than a mastery of
compound multiplication, and occasionally he felt a wish that some one
of his schoolfellows would call Miss Nancarrow names, that he might
punch the rascal's head. But in the father's mind there was an obstacle
to complete appreciation. Totty was a Roman Catholic. She often went to
St. George's Cathedral, in Southwark, and even for the purpose of
confession. When this fact was strongly before Bunce's consciousness,
he was inclined to scorn Totty and to feel an uneasiness about her
associating with his children. Somehow, the scorn and the mistrust
would not hold out in Totty's presence. He found himself taking more
pains to be polite to her than to any other person. When she had had
Nelly in her room, and brought the child to him on his coming home, he
invented excuses to get her to talk for a few moments. Unfortunately,
Totty appe