s wife.

"You'd better have it where it's going to stop. I don't want to hawk it
about."

"Put it on the floor against the dresser, Father. Put it there," urged
Millicent.

"You come and put some paper down, then," called the mother hastily.

The two children ran indoors, the man stood contemplative in the cold,
shrugging his uncovered shoulders slightly. The open inner door showed a
bright linoleum on the floor, and the end of a brown side-board on which
stood an aspidistra.

Again with a wrench Aaron Sisson lifted the box. The tree pricked and
stung. His wife watched him as he entered staggering, with his face
averted.

"Mind where you make a lot of dirt," she said.

He lowered the box with a little jerk on to the spread-out newspaper on
the floor. Soil scattered.

"Sweep it up," he said to Millicent.

His ear was lingering over the sudden, clutching hiss of the
tree-boughs.

A stark white incandescent light filled the room and made everything
sharp and hard. In the open fire-place a hot fire burned red. All was
scrupulously clean and perfect. A baby was cooing in a rocker-less
wicker cradle by the hearth. The mother, a slim, neat woman with dark
hair, was sewing a child's frock. She put this aside, rose, and began to
take her husband's dinner from the oven.

"You stopped confabbing long enough tonight," she said.

"Yes," he answered, going to the back kitchen to wash his hands.

In a few minutes he came and sat down to his dinner. The doors were shut
close, but there was a draught, because the settling of the mines under
the house made the doors not fit. Aaron moved his chair, to get out of
the draught. But he still sat in his shirt and trousers.

He was a good-looking man, fair, and pleasant, about thirty-two years
old. He did not talk much, but seemed to think about something. His wife
resumed her sewing. She was acutely aware of her husband, but he seemed
not very much aware of her.

"What were they on about today, then?" she said.

"About the throw-in."

"And did they settle anything?"

"They're going to try it--and they'll come out if it isn't
satisfactory."

"The butties won't have it, I know," she said. He gave a short laugh,
and went on with his meal.

The two children were squatted on the floor by the tree. They had a
wooden box, from which they had taken many little newspaper packets,
which they were spreading out like wares.

"Don't open any. We won't open any of them till we'v