stifled here for twenty years,
lad. But then,' he added, with his own dry, wistful twinkle of a
fleeting smile, 'I was born to stifle. What'll you do in the world,
Paul, when ye get into it, if ye're out of it here?'

'I don't know, sir. I shall try to do something.'

'Ay!' said Armstrong again; 'ay, ay!'

His gray-blue eyes dreamed behind his grizzled brows, and Paul sat
watching him. There was a touching something in the gray, bowed figure
and the gray patience of his face. Paul seemed to see him alone, thus
dreaming.

'I won't go, dad, unless you like.'

'It's best, Paul; it's best.'

A knock sounded at the front-door, and Paul walked down the long narrow
passage which lay alongside the sitting-room and the shop, and admitted
the major part of the household. They had been to a tea-meeting and
concert at Ebenezer, and they all trooped chattering into the big
kitchen, bringing a smell of frost and night air in their raiment.

'Mary,' said Armstrong, at the first gap of silence, 'Paul is going to
London.'

Paul's heart swelled at this unlooked-for acceptance of his plans, but
the household stood in wonder.

'What's Paul got to go to London for?' asked Mrs. Armstrong.

'We've talked it over within the last few minutes,' returned Armstrong.
'The lad's coming to discretion. He wants to see the world. I'll find
something for him to do there.'

'William,' said his wife, 'you're mad.'

Armstrong lit his pipe and said nothing, but the wife uplifted her voice
and spoke.

'Yes,' she said, 'you've got your proper look on, as if you were half a
million miles away, and me a insect, crawling about somewhere in another
planet and not worthy of a thought I know your ways--I've got a right to
know 'em after nine-and-thirty 'ears o' married life, I reckon. You've
spoke your word, and you'll sooner die than go back on it. Another man
'ud give some sort of a why an' a wherefore. But you! You're Sir Horacle,
you are. You've opened your lips, and other folks' talk is just no more
than so many dogs a-chelpin'! What's our Paul want to go to London
for? Answer me that, if you please, William Armstrong. If it was in me,
William, to be a downright vulgar woman, I'd take the poker to you.'

Armstrong looked up with his swift, dry twinkle, and she laughed.
She tried to make the laugh sound angry, but the effort was useless.
Armstrong twinkled again, and she burst into a peal.

'Children,' she said, wiping her eyes with the fring