at his young wife's discomfiture. "And with the prospect
of a second edition to follow!"

But Polly would not capitulate right off. "I don't think it's very kind
of you to talk like that, Richard," she said warmly. "People can't help
their looks." She moved about the room putting things straight, and
avoiding his eye. "As long as they mean well and are good.... But I
think you would rather no one ever came to stay with us, at all."

Fixing her with meaning insistence and still smiling, Mahony opened his
arms. The next moment Polly was on his knee, her face hidden in his
shoulder. There she shed a few tears. "Oh, isn't she dreadful? I don't
know WHAT I shall do with her. She's been serving behind the bar,
Richard, for more than a year. And she's come expecting to be taken
everywhere and to have any amount of gaiety."

At coach-time she had dragged a reluctant Purdy to the office. But as
soon as he caught sight of Tilly: "On the box, Richard, beside the
driver, with her hair all towsy-wowsy in the wind--he just said: 'Oh,
lor, Polly!' and disappeared, and that was the last I saw of him. I
don't know how I should have got on if it hadn't been for old Mr.
Ocock, who was down meeting a parcel. He was most kind; he helped us
home with her carpet-bag, and saw after her trunk. And, oh dear, what
do you think? When he was going away he said to me in the passage--so
loud I'm sure Tilly must have heard him--he said: 'Well! that's
something like a figure of a female this time, Mrs. Doc. As fine a
young woman as ever I see!'"

And Polly hid her face again; and husband and wife laughed in concert.

Chapter VIII

That night a great storm rose. Mahony, sitting reading after everyone
else had retired, saw it coming, and lamp in hand went round the house
to secure hasps and catches; then stood at the window to watch the
storm's approach. In one half of the sky the stars were still
peacefully alight; the other was hidden by a dense cloud, which came
racing along like a giant bat with outspread wings, devouring the stars
in its flight. The storm broke; there was a sudden shrill screeching, a
grinding, piping, whistling, and the wind hurled itself against the
house as if to level it with the ground; failing in this, it banged and
battered, making windows and doors shake like loose teeth in their
sockets. Then it swept by to wreak its fury elsewhere, and there was a
grateful lull out of which burst a peal of thunder. And now pea