butter caught his
eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the
refinements of his taste.

'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs.
Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the
viands.

'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr.
Snowdon.

As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in
consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a
question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory
way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for
the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I
came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my
last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got
an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my
child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still
alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance
was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and
that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered
the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an
affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep
sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is,
that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected.
Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk
she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room,
undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when
_that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't
seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my
girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad,
three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all
this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long,
and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took
a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down
with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the
world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There
_are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known
people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may
think you know a man or a woman, and