-place. 'All
black, and I believe it's half a Persian. Just the very thing I
wanted.'

While Frankie amused himself playing with the kitten, which had been
provided with another saucer of bread and milk, Owen went into the
bedroom to put on the dry clothes, and then, those that he had taken
off having been placed with his boots near the fire to dry, he
explained as they were taking tea the reason of his late homecoming.

'I'm afraid he won't find it very easy to get another job,' he
remarked, referring to Linden. 'Even in the summer nobody will be
inclined to take him on. He's too old.'

'It's a dreadful prospect for the two children,' answered his wife.

'Yes,' replied Owen bitterly. 'It's the children who will suffer most.
As for Linden and his wife, although of course one can't help feeling
sorry for them, at the same time there's no getting away from the fact
that they deserve to suffer. All their lives they've been working like
brutes and living in poverty. Although they have done more than their
fair share of the work, they have never enjoyed anything like a fair
share of the things they have helped to produce. And yet, all their
lives they have supported and defended the system that robbed them, and
have resisted and ridiculed every proposal to alter it. It's wrong to
feel sorry for such people; they deserve to suffer.'

After tea, as he watched his wife clearing away the tea things and
rearranging the drying clothing by the fire, Owen for the first time
noticed that she looked unusually ill.

'You don't look well tonight, Nora,' he said, crossing over to her and
putting his arm around her.

'I don't feel well,' she replied, resting her head wearily against his
shoulder. 'I've been very bad all day and I had to lie down nearly all
the afternoon. I don't know how I should have managed to get the tea
ready if it had not been for Frankie.'

'I set the table for you, didn't I, Mum?' said Frankie with pride; 'and
tidied up the room as well.'

'Yes, darling, you helped me a lot,' she answered, and Frankie went
over to her and kissed her hand.

'Well, you'd better go to bed at once,' said Owen. 'I can put Frankie
to bed presently and do whatever else is necessary.'

'But there are so many things to attend to. I want to see that your
clothes are properly dry and to put something ready for you to take in
the morning before you go out, and then there's your breakfast to pack
up--'

'I can manage