e workshops, looking into the eyes of the
young men as if far more concerned to search their souls than their
benches; and Sabre, when speaking to him, always had the feeling that
Mr. Bright was penetrating him with the same intention.

Extraordinary that such a stern and hard old man should have for
daughter such a fresh and lovable slip of a young thing as his Effie!
Bright Effie, Sabre always called her, inverting her names. Mr. Bright
had a little cupboard called his office at the foot of the main stairway
and Bright Effie came often to see her father there. Sabre had spoken to
her in the little cupboard or just outside it. He had delight in
watching the most extraordinary shining that she had in her eyes. It was
like reading an entertaining book, he used to think, and he had the idea
that humor of that rarest kind which is unbounded love mingled with
unbounded sense of the oddities of life was packed to bursting within
her. All that she saw or heard seemed to be taken into that exhaustless
fount, metamorphosed into the most delicious sensations, and shone forth
in extraordinarily humorous delight through her eyes. Somewhere in the
dullest day light is found and thrown back by a bright surface. It was
just so, Sabre used to think, with Effie. All things were fresh to her
and she found freshness in all things.

Some such apprehension of her Sabre had expressed to Twyning on the
occasion that came to his mind during young Perch's entreaty for some
one to live with his mother. Sabre had been standing with Twyning at Mr.
Fortune's window, Mr. Bright and Effie leaving the office and crossing
the street together beneath them. Twyning, who was on intimate terms
with Mr. Bright, had given a short laugh and said, "Hullo, you seem to
have been thinking a lot about the fair Effie!"

The kind of laugh and the kind of remark that Sabre hated and he gave a
slight gesture which Twyning well knew meant that he hated it. This was
what Twyning called "stuck-uppishness" and equally hated, and he chose
words expressive of his resentment,--the class insistence.

"Well, she's got to earn her living, however jolly she is. She's not one
of your fine ladies, you know."

Sabre recognised the implication but ignored it. "What's old Bright
going to do with her?"

"He doesn't quite know. He was talking to my missus about it the other
day. He's as good as we are, you know. He's an idea of getting her out
as a sort of lady's companion somew