s worship of Mr. Dale. For
truly, as he himself had surmised, her little starved breast was
overflowing with gratitude to the man who had saved her father. It
mattered nothing to the children of the mud hovel that their father
was not an exemplary character; they did not want him to be drowned;
and Norah, hearing in extreme youth of the hero who had interposed
between him and such a cruel death, had mentally built a pedestal for
the hero and kept him on top of it ever since.

It happened that about the time when Dale was preparing to pay off
the last instalment of his debt, Mr. Bates unexpectedly applied for
the money. He had never before shown the least anxiety for repayment;
it had always been "Take your time, William. I know I'm in safe
hands," and so forth; but now he said, "If you can make it convenient
to you, William, it would be convenient to me."

"Oh, certainly, Mr. Bates. You shall have it before the end of the
week--and I hope you're going to act on the advice I ventured to offer
last time; that is, put it in one of these Canadian Government
guaranteed stocks."

"I'm sure it was good advice, William--even if I didn't act on it."

"Of course my orig'nal advice was what you ought to have acted on, Mr.
Bates. That is to say, bought an annuity with your entire capital."

"Ah, William, I really couldn't do that;" and Mr. Bates turned away
his eyes, as if unable to support Dale's friendly regard. "Apart from
these annuities for old folk being rather a dog-in-the-manger trick,
I--well, one has one's private difficulties, William. One is not
always a free agent."

The demand for repayment, and with something of evasiveness or
reticence in the old fellow's manner, greatly troubled Dale. Not at
all from selfish motives; but because it confirmed a suspicion that he
had long entertained. Although invisible locally, disgraced and hiding
somewhere at a distance, that blackguardly son was probably still
draining the good old man's resources.

So many things pointed to the correctness of this supposition. On the
interest of the money that Mavis and Dale had together paid him for
the business, he should have been able to live very comfortably;
whereas, in fact, his way of life was mean and sorry. His cottage was
quite a decent dwelling, separated from the road by a nice long strip
of garden, and with a miniature apple orchard behind it; but it showed
all those signs of neglect that had been evident at Vine-Pits when