nd of knowledge which develops character. Mrs.
Peckover had small experience of faces which bear the stamp of simple
sincerity. This man's countenance put her out. As a matter of course,
he wished to overreach her in some way, but he was obviously very deep
indeed. And then she found it so difficult to guess his purposes. How
would he proceed if she gave him details of Jane's history, admitting
that she was the child of Joseph James Snowdon? What, again, had he
been told by the people of whom he had made inquiries? She needed time
to review her position.

'As I was sayin',' she resumed, poking the fire, 'I've been a mother to
her these six years or more, an' I feel I done the right thing by her.
She was left on my 'ands by them as promised to pay for her keep; an' a
few months, I may say a few weeks, was all as ever I got. Another woman
would a sent the child to the 'Ouse; but that's always the way with me;
I'm always actin' against my own interesses.'

'You say that her parents went away and left her?' asked the old man,
knitting his brows.

'Her father did. Her mother, she died in this very 'ouse, an' she was
buried from it. He gave her a respectable burial, I'll say that much
for him. An' I shouldn't have allowed anything but one as was
respectable to leave this 'ouse; I'd sooner a paid money out o' my own
pocket. That's always the way with me. Mr. Willis, he's my undertaker;
you'll find him at Number 17 Green Passage He buried my 'usband; though
that wasn't from the Close; but I never knew a job turned out more
respectable. He was 'ere to-day; we've only just buried my 'usband's
mother. That's why I ain't quite myself--see?'

Mrs. Peckover was not wont to be gossippy. She became so at present,
partly in consequence of the stimulants she had taken to support her
through a trying ceremony, partly as a means of obtaining time to
reflect. Jane's unlucky illness made an especial difficulty in her
calculations. She felt that the longer she delayed mention of the fact,
the more likely was she to excite suspicion; on the other hand, she
could not devise the suitable terms in which to reveal it. The steady
gaze of the old man was disconcerting. Not that he searched her face
with a cunning scrutiny, such as her own eyes expressed; she would have
found that less troublesome, as being familiar. The anxiety, the
troubled anticipation, which her words had aroused in him, were wholly
free from shadow of ignoble motive; he was