elt replete the
boy began to cry, and soon howled. "I wis' I lived here always, yes, I
do."

"O Billy, you like home best."

"No, I don't. I like this best. I hate home;" and he bellowed.

"He's getting tired," said Norah sagely.

"Yes," said Mavis. "That's all it is. He's getting tired."

He fell asleep directly they got into the lamplit train; and Norah
carried him from the station, carried him all the time the horse was
being put to and they were getting ready to leave. "He's too much for
you," said Dale kindly. "Give him to me."

"Oh, no, sir."

And Dale whispered approvingly to Mavis, saying that he liked Norah's
grit.

Then they drove home; Norah behind with the children, both of them
sleeping now; and Dale and Mavis side by side in front, talking
quietly as they passed beneath the dark trees and out beneath the
bright stars.

XXIII

Norah was a treasure to them, and she seemed always to be improving.
She had done with school now, but she evinced a commendable yearning
for further cultivation, buying copy-books with her pocket-money,
imitating Dale's clerkly hand; so that already at a pinch she was able
to help in the office work. But proud as she felt when permitted to
copy out accounts or circular letters, her pride did not spoil her for
household labor. In fact she worked so stanchly at scrubbing,
scouring, and so forth, as well as looking after the children, that
for a long while Mavis did not detect how poor old Mrs. Goudie was
failing, and leaving nearly all her duties to be performed by others.
Moreover, in spite of having issued from the untidy hovel of those
rammucky Veales, she showed an innate love of cleanliness and order,
assiduously brushing her black hair and scrupulously washing her white
skin.

Only very rarely she gave a little trouble, and then both Dale and his
wife attributed this naughtiness to the Veale origin, finding the
explanation of a certain wildness in that strain of gipsy blood which,
as was popularly supposed, ran down her pedigree. She disgraced
herself when the circus menagerie passed the gates of Vine-Pits. She
stood firm with the rest of them watching the great painted vans go
by, and the droves of horses, and the tiny ponies; but when the
elephants came she broke away. The size, the weirdness, the shuffling
footsteps of these beasts made her beside herself. A lot of ragged
children with great wicked-looking hobbledehoys from the Cross Roads,
were trotti