wanted to, in my hearin'.
I can see all I want to see. There's a flight o' steps runnin' up close
outside the window."

She pointed it out and quite candidly indicated the point at which she
proposed to perch herself. "And there's another window at the back,"
she added: "so's you can see all that's happenin' inside."

"Better fit you ran away home," he repeated.

"You can't _make_ me," retorted Fancy. "Unless, o' course, you choose
to use force, here in broad daylight. As a friend of mine said, only
the other day," she went on, snatching at a purple patch from
'Pickerley,' "the man as would lift his hand against a woman deserves
whatever can be said of him. Public opinion will condemn him in this
life, and, in the next, worms are his portion. So there!"

"I dunno what you're talkin' about," said 'Bias, preoccupied with the
thought of coming vengeance.

"Who's meanin' to lift his hand against a woman?"

"Well, mind you don't, that's all!"

She left him standing on the doorstep, and skipped away up the steps.
Having reached a point which commanded a view over the blinds of Mr
Philp's front window, she gave a glance into the room, and at once her
arms and legs started to twitch as though in the opening movement of
some barbaric war-dance.

'Bias, still inattentive, took no heed of these contortions. After a
moment's pause he rapped sharply on the door with the knob of his
walking-stick, then boldly lifted the latch and strode into the passage.

On his right the door of the front parlour stood ajar. He thrust it
wide open and entered. And, as he entered, a female figure arose from a
chair on the far side of the room.

"I--I beg your pardon, ma'am!" stammered 'Bias, falling back a pace.

"Polly wants a kiss!" screamed a voice. It did not seem to proceed from
the lady. . . . Somehow, too, it was strangely familiar. . . .
'Bias stared wildly about him.

At the same moment, and just as his eyes fell on the parrot-cage on the
table, the lady--But was it a lady? Heavens! what did it resemble--this
figure in female attire?

"Drat your bird! He won't say no worse! And this is the third mornin'
I've sat temptin' him!"

Mr Philp--yes, it was Mr Philp--in black merino frock, Paisley shawl and
ribboned cap on which a few puce-coloured poppies nodded--Mr Philp, with
a handful of knitting, and a ball of worsted trailing at his feet--
But it is impossible to construct a sentence which would do justice to
Mr