g girl, Sabina; and if you'd attend to your
business instead of going to sleep in the middle of the day, you might
die a rich woman yet."

"I would not, then. How would the like of me be rich?"

"You certainly won't be," said Meldon, "if you don't do your work."

"The potatoes is in the pot," said Sabina.

"They may be; but Mr. Doyle will be looking for more than potatoes at
dinner time. He doesn't look as if he lived entirely on potatoes."

Sabina grinned. Doyle was a portly man.

"It won't take me long to fry a couple of rashers," she said, "once the
grease is hot."

"And is fried bacon and potatoes all you're going to give the poor man?
What wages does he pay you?"

"Six pounds."

"Very well. Now listen to me, Sabina. You put your back into it and
cook the man a decent dinner. Give him soup, and then a nicely done
chop with a dish of spinach and some fried potatoes. After that a
sweet omelette--"

"Glory be to God!" said Sabina.

"And then a little savoury, tomato and olives, beaten to a cream, with
the yolk of a hard-boiled egg served up on toast, cut into dice."

"Arrah, what talk!" said Sabina.

"Get him accustomed to that sort of dinner for three weeks or a month,
and then ask him for a rise in your wages. He'll give it to you."

"He would not."

"He would. Any man would. The mistake you make is half-starving him.
That makes his temper bad, and--"

"I wouldn't say then that ever I heard a cross word out of his mouth,"
said Sabina, "unless it might be when he'd be talking of Mr. Simpkins
or the like."

"I suppose he swears then," said Meldon.

"He does terrible."

"I don't wonder. I never swear myself. Being a clergyman, I can't, of
course. But from what I've seen of Mr. Simpkins, and from what I've
heard about him, I should think he'd make most men swear. Do you know
him at all intimately, Sabina?"

"I do not; but the girl that's with him beyond in the house is a cousin
of my own, and I hear her talking about him. She does be saying that
the like of him for nonsensical goings on she never seen. She--"

"Thank you," said Meldon. "I don't want to hear your cousin's views of
Mr. Simpkins' domestic arrangements. She's red-haired, if she's the
girl that opened the door to me a while ago, and I never knew one of
her colour that spoke the truth."

Sabina was loyal to her family. She resented Meldon's remark.

"If you were to put me on my oath," she said, "I wouldn't call