tter make a bolt for it. She had
had her breakfast, which was an asset to the good, and nothing worse
could happen to her out in the open world than she feared in this
great dim, gloomy house. She had once crept in to look at the
cathedral and, overwhelmed by its height, immensity, and mystery, had
crept out again. Its emotional suggestions had been more than she
could bear. She felt now as if her bed had been made and her food laid
out in that cathedral--as if, as long as she remained, she must eat
and sleep in this vast, pillared solemnity.

And that was only one thing. There were small practical considerations
even more terrible to confront. If Nettie were to appear again ...

But it was as to this that Steptoe was making his appeal. "I sye,
girls, don't you go to mykin' a fuss and spoilin' your lives, when
you've got a chanst as'll never come again."

Mrs. Courage answered for them all. To sacrifice decency to
self-interest wasn't in them, nor never would be. Some there might be,
like 'Enery Steptoe, who would sell their birthright for a mess of
pottage, but Mary Ann Courage was not of that company, nor any other
woman upon whom she could use her influence. If a hussy had been put
to reign over them, reigned over by a hussy none of them would be. All
they asked was to see her once, to deliver the ultimatum of giving
notice.

"It's a strynge thing to me," Steptoe reasoned, "that when one poor
person gets a lift, every other poor person comes down on 'em."

"And might we arsk who you means by poor persons?"

"Who should I mean, Mrs. Courage, but people like us? If we don't 'ang
by each other, who _will_ 'ang by us, I should like to know? 'Ere's
one of us plyced in a 'igh position, and instead o' bein' proud of it,
and givin' 'er a lift to carry 'er along, you're all for mykin' it as
'ard for 'er as you can. Do you call that sensible?"

"I call it sensible for everyone to stye in their proper spere."

"So that if a man's poor, you must keep 'im poor, no matter 'ow 'e
tries to better 'imself. That's what your proper speres would come
to."

But argument being of no use, Steptoe could only make up his mind to
revolution in the house. "The poor's very good to the poor when one of
'em's in trouble," was his summing up, "but let one of 'em 'ave an
extry stroke of luck, and all the rest'll jaw against 'im like so many
magpies." As a parting shot he declared on leaving the kitchen, "The
trouble with you girls is tha