ery comfort round you that any man can possibly want.
You can't go on at it always, toiling and moiling as you're doing
now. It's quite dreadful for a man never to have a moment to himself
at your time of life, and of course it must tell on any constitution
if it's kept up too long. You're not the man you were, T.; and of
course you couldn't expect it."

"Oh, bother!"

"That's all very well; but it's my duty to see these things, and
to think of them, and to speak of them too. Where should I be, and
the girls, if you was hurried into your grave by working too hard?"
Mrs. Tappitt's voice, as this terrible suggestion fell from her, was
almost poetic, through the depth of its solemnity. "Do you think I
don't know what it is that takes you to the Dragon so late at night?"

"I don't go to the Dragon late at night."

"I'm not finding fault, T.; and you needn't answer me so sharp. It's
only natural you should want something to sustain you after such
slavery as you have to go through. I'm not unreasonable. I know very
well what a man is, and what it is he can do, and what he can't. It
would be all very well your going on if you had a partner you could
trust."

"Nothing on earth shall induce me to carry on with that fellow."

"And therefore you ought to take him at his word and retire. It would
be the gentlemanlike thing to do. Of course you'd have the power of
going over and seeing that things was straight. And if we was living
comfortable at some genteel place, such as Torquay or the like, of
course you wouldn't want to be going out to Dragons every evening
then. I shouldn't wonder if, in two or three years, you didn't find
yourself as strong as ever again."

Tappitt, beneath the clothes, insisted that he was strong; and made
some virile remark in answer to that further allusion to the Dragon.
He by no means gave way to his wife, or uttered any word of assent;
but the lady's scheme had been made known to him; the ice had been
broken; and Mrs. Tappitt, when she put out the candle, felt that she
had done a good evening's work.

CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. RAY'S PENITENCE.

Another fortnight went by, and still nothing further was heard at
Bragg's End from Luke Rowan. Much was heard of him in Baslehurst.
It was soon known by everybody that he had bought the cottages; and
there was a widely-spread and well-credited rumour that he was going
to commence the necessary buildings for a new brewhouse at once. Nor
were these