e chose himself. It
certainly is very pretty--don't you think so? But too delicate to wear
well. I am always frightened to see children go near it, or even
grown-up people when it has been raining, or if they have been
gathering dust--it does show every spot so! And it was the mother's
fault. I signed to Mary to give him a biscuit, but his mother picked
out that cake, which had jam in it. It is very unfortunate. I don't
wonder at his being vexed."

"Why don't you have chintz covers, Moll?"

"Oh, he wouldn't like it to be covered up," Miss Goldsworthy struck in,
and seemed shocked herself at the suggested waste. Mary lifted dull
eyes to her sister's face.

"Come and have some tea," she said. "Come, auntie; it is no use your
worrying yourself."

And they went into the poky living room, which smelt of meals, and had
tea, and the sort of barren talk that the presence of the third person
necessitated. Mary seemed purposely to avoid a TETE-A-TETE. When Miss
Goldsworthy went to fetch the baby, Ruby was kept at her step-mother's
side. Only when the black-eyed boy appeared did Mary brighten into a
likeness to her old self. She was a born mother, and her child consoled
her. Then, in the midst of the baby worship, back came the still
agitated husband and father, the furniture man with him; and the house
was filled anew with the affair of the soiled sofa, so that Deb's
presence, as also her departure, attracted little attention. As her
brother-in-law pushed out a valedictory hand, she noticed a shirt-cuff
that had the grime of days upon it.

"He economises in the wash," she soliloquised, with wrinkling nostril
and curling lip. "And in those filthy cheap coals that choke the grate
with dust, and in tea that is undrinkable. Oh, what a house!"

And she had not been there since. But now--

Her benevolence embraced the world, and the world included Bennet
Goldsworthy. It was no longer in his power to make her feel ill. The
sun of her prosperity, shining on him at her sister's side--poor,
struggling, well-meaning little man!--gave him a pathetic and appealing
interest. In fact, it was to him that her maternal dispositions towards
her family drew her first.

"Thank God," she said to herself, "I can now make things a bit easier
for that poor child. She won't let me, I daresay, but he will."

She took the humble tram to their suburb, and rang at their parsonage
door. Having considerately sent word that she was coming, due
prepar