've a-spoke about us stoppin'; so as Mettie goes out to sarvice."

"'E've a-spoke about what 'e don't know 'bout, then. Let un do what
they like, they can't put Tom Gaunt about; he can get work anywhere--Tom
Gaunt can, an' don't you forget that, old man."

The old man, placing his thin brown hands on his knees, was silent. And
thoughts passed through and through him. 'If so be as Tom goes, there'll
be no one as'll take me in for less than three bob a week. Two bob a
week, that's what I'll 'ave to feed me--Two bob a week--two bob a week!
But if so be's I go with Tom, I'll 'ave to reg'lar sit down under he for
me bread and butter.' And he contemplated his son.

"Where are you goin', then?" he said.

Tom Gaunt rustled the greenish paper he was reading, and his little,
hard gray eyes fixed his father.

"Who said I was going?"

Old Gaunt, smoothing and smoothing the lined, thin cheeks of the
parchmenty, thin-nosed face that Frances Freeland had thought to be
almost like a gentleman's, answered: "I thart you said you was goin'."

"You think too much, then--that's what 'tis. You think too much, old
man."

With a slight deepening of the sardonic patience in his face, old Gaunt
rose, took a bowl and spoon down from a shelf, and very slowly proceeded
to make himself his evening meal. It consisted of crusts of bread soaked
in hot water and tempered with salt, pepper, onion, and a touch of
butter. And while he waited, crouched over the kettle, his son smoked
his grayish clay and read his greenish journal; an old clock ticked and
a little cat purred without provocation on the ledge of the tight-closed
window. Then the door opened and the rogue-girl appeared. She shook her
shoulders as though to dismiss the wetting she had got, took off her
turn-down, speckly, straw hat, put on an apron, and rolled up her
sleeves. Her arms were full and firm and red; the whole of her was full
and firm. From her rosy cheeks to her stout ankles she was superabundant
with vitality, the strangest contrast to her shadowy, thin old
grandfather. About the preparation of her father's tea she moved with a
sort of brooding stolidity, out of which would suddenly gleam a twinkle
of rogue-sweetness, as when she stopped to stroke the little cat or to
tickle the back of her grandfather's lean neck in passing. Having set
the tea, she stood by the table and said slowly: "Tea's ready, father.
I'm goin' to London."

Tom Gaunt put down his pipe and journal, to