y and the maturer Jack--a
pot of black currant preserve. She spread some with a liberal hand on
the lad's bread, then watched him as he ate, her enjoyment equalling
his own. The bread finished, she offered a spoonful of jam pure and
simple; it was swallowed with gusto.

'I say, Miss Nancarrow,' remarked Jack, 'I don't half-like going to a
new house. I can't see what father wants to move for; we're well enough
off here.'

'Why don't you want to go?'

'Well, there's a good many things. I shouldn't mind so much, you know,
if you was coming as well.'

Again she laughed.

'That's as much as to say, Jack, you'll be sorry when there's no jam.
It isn't _me_, not it!'

'Don't be so sure. I shall come and see you often enough, and not for
jam, either. You're always jolly with me. And I don't see why you can't
come as well. Father 'ud like you to.'

Totty regarded him with a smile for an instant, then asked, carelessly:

'How do you know that? As if it made any difference to your father!'

'But he's said he wished you was coming. He said so day before
yesterday.'

'Nonsense! Now get off to bed. He'll be back, and we shall both get
scolded.'

Jack drew to the door, but Totty recalled him.

'What an idea, for your father to say he wished I was coming! Tell me
how he said it.'

'Why, it was about Nelly. We was talking and saying Nelly 'ud miss you.
And father said, half to himself like, 'Nelly wouldn't be sorry if Miss
Nancarrow 'ud come and be with her always, and I dare say somebody else
wouldn't be sorry, either.''

'Why, you silly boy, he meant you, of course.'

'Oh no, he didn't. Think I can't tell what he meant!'

'Run off to bed! I think I hear your father coming in.'

Jack made a rush, and in one minute and a half was under the
bed-clothes.

The removal which Bunce was about to effect signified an improvement of
circumstances. It was time for his luck to turn. Year after year he had
found himself still at grip with poverty. The shadow of his evil
domestic experiences lengthened as he drew further away, and it seemed
as if he would never get beyond it. To a man of any native delicacy,
the memory of bondage to a hateful woman clings like a long disease
which impoverishes the blood; there is only one way of eradicating it,
and that is with the aid of a strong, wholesome, new emotion. And at
length Bunce began to feel that the past was really past; one sign of
it was the better fortune which enabled him t