am very unwilling to speak, Charley. If I must, I must. I cannot
authorize you to say any such thing to Mr Headstone: I cannot allow you
to say any such thing to Mr Headstone. Nothing remains to be said to him
from me, after what I have said for good and all, to-night.'

'And this girl,' cried the boy, contemptuously throwing her off again,
'calls herself a sister!'

'Charley, dear, that is the second time that you have almost struck
me. Don't be hurt by my words. I don't mean--Heaven forbid!--that you
intended it; but you hardly know with what a sudden swing you removed
yourself from me.'

'However!' said the boy, taking no heed of the remonstrance, and
pursuing his own mortified disappointment, 'I know what this means, and
you shall not disgrace me.'

'It means what I have told you, Charley, and nothing more.'

'That's not true,' said the boy in a violent tone, 'and you know it's
not. It means your precious Mr Wrayburn; that's what it means.'

'Charley! If you remember any old days of ours together, forbear!'

'But you shall not disgrace me,' doggedly pursued the boy. 'I am
determined that after I have climbed up out of the mire, you shall not
pull me down. You can't disgrace me if I have nothing to do with you,
and I will have nothing to do with you for the future.'

'Charley! On many a night like this, and many a worse night, I have sat
on the stones of the street, hushing you in my arms. Unsay those words
without even saying you are sorry for them, and my arms are open to you
still, and so is my heart.'

'I'll not unsay them. I'll say them again. You are an inveterately bad
girl, and a false sister, and I have done with you. For ever, I have
done with you!'

He threw up his ungrateful and ungracious hand as if it set up a barrier
between them, and flung himself upon his heel and left her. She remained
impassive on the same spot, silent and motionless, until the striking
of the church clock roused her, and she turned away. But then, with the
breaking up of her immobility came the breaking up of the waters that
the cold heart of the selfish boy had frozen. And 'O that I were lying
here with the dead!' and 'O Charley, Charley, that this should be the
end of our pictures in the fire!' were all the words she said, as she
laid her face in her hands on the stone coping.

A figure passed by, and passed on, but stopped and looked round at
her. It was the figure of an old man with a bowed head, wearing a large
b