to sacrifice herself to her son's selfish longing for tobacco.

"Only just hear me to the end, my dear, and then you can get away to
your pipe. What I did _not_ say--for you interrupted me--did not
relate so much to Miss Laetitia Wilson as to Sally Nightingale. She,
I am sure, would never come between any man she married and his mother.
I am making no reference to any one whatever, although, however old I
am, I have eyes in my head and can see. But I can read character, and
that is my interpretation of Sally Nightingale's."

"Sally Nightingale and I are not going to make it up, if that's what
you mean, mother. She wouldn't have me, for one thing----"

"My dear, I am not going to argue the point. It is nearly eleven, and
unless I get to bed I shan't sleep. Now go away to your pipe, and
think of what I have said. And don't slam your door and wake me
when you come up." She offered him a selection to kiss, shutting her
eyes tight. And he gave place to Craddock, and went away to his
unwholesome, smelly habit, as his mamma had more than once called it.
His face was perplexed and uncomfortable; however, it got ease after
a few puffs of pale returns and a welcome minute of memory of the
bouquet of those sixes.

But his little happy oasis was a very small one. For a messenger came
with a furious pull at the night-bell and a summons for the doctor.
His delirium-tremens case had very nearly qualified its brain for a
P.M.--at least, if there were any of it left--by getting at a pistol
and taking a bad aim at it. The unhappy dipsomaniac was half-shot,
and prompt medical attendance was necessary to prevent the something
considerable being claimed by his heir-at-law.

Whether this came to pass or not does not concern us. This much is
certain, that at the end of six months which this chapter represents,
and which you have probably skipped, he was as much forgotten by the
doctor as the pipe his patient's suicidal escapade had interrupted, or
the semi-vexation with his mother he was using it as an anodyne for.

CHAPTER XXVI

MORNING AT LADBROKE GROVE ROAD, AND FAMILY DISSENSION. FACCIOLATI,
AND A LEGACY. THE LAST CONCERT THIS SEASON. THE GOODY WILL COME TO
IGGULDEN'S. BUT FANCY PROSY IN LOVE!

Towards the end of the July that very quickly followed Rosalind
noticed an intensification of what might be called the Ladbroke Grove
Road Row Chronicle--a record transmitted by Sally to her real and
adopted parent in the ins