road," the speaker
went on, nothing loath to gossip with 'one o' th' Mesters.' "He nivver
did nowt fur her but spend her wage i' drink. But theer wur a neet
skoo' here a few years sen', an' th' lass went her ways wi' a few o' th'
steady uns, an' they say as she getten ahead on 'em aw, so as it wur a
wonder. Just let her set her mind to do owt an' she'll do it."

"Here," said Derrick to Paul that night, as the engineer leaned back in
his easy chair, glowering at the grate and knitting his brows, "Here,"
he said, "is a creature with the majesty of a Juno--though really
nothing but a girl in years--who rules a set of savages by the mere
power of a superior will and mind, and yet a woman who works at the
mouth of a coal-pit,--who cannot write her own name, and who is beaten
by her fiend of a father as if she were a dog. Good Heaven! what is she
doing here? What does it all mean?"

The Reverend Paul put up his delicate hand deprecatingly.

"My dear Fergus," he said, "if I dare--if my own life and the lives of
others would let me--I think I should be tempted to give it up, as one
gives up other puzzles, when one is beaten by them."

Derrick looked at him, forgetting himself in a sudden sympathetic
comprehension.

"You have been more than ordinarily discouraged to-day," he said. "What
is it, Grace?"

"Do you know Sammy Craddock?" was the reply.

"'Owd Sammy Craddock'?" said Derrick with a laugh. "Wasn't it 'Owd
Sammy,' who was talking to me to-day about Joan Lowrie?"

"I dare say it was," sighing. "And if you know Sammy Craddock, you know
one of the principal causes of my discouragement. I went to see him this
afternoon, and I have not quite--. quite got over it, in fact."

Derrick's interest in his friend's trials was stirred as usual at the
first signal of distress. It was the part of his stronger and more
evenly balanced nature to be constantly ready with generous sympathy and
comfort.

"It has struck me," he said, "that Craddock is one of the institutions
of Riggan. I should like to hear something definite concerning him. Why
is he your principal cause of discouragement, in the first place?"

"Because he is the man of all others whom it is hard for me to deal
with,--because he is the shrewdest, the most irreverent and the most
disputatious old fellow in Riggan. And yet, in the face of all this,
because he is so often right, I am forced into a sort of respect for
him."

"Right!" repeated Derrick, raising his