n' three pound a week, 'e did. As I said to 'im
this mornin', "'Ow a gentleman can use sich language, I dunno."'

''Usbands is cautions, 'owever good they are,' said Mrs. Kemp,
aphoristically. 'But I mustn't stay aht 'ere in the night air.'

''As yer rheumatism been troublin' yer litely?' asked Mrs. Stanley.

'Oh, cruel. Liza rubs me with embrocation every night, but it torments
me cruel.'

Mrs. Kemp then went into the house, and Liza remained talking to Mrs.
Stanley, she, too, had to go in, and Liza was left alone. Some while
she spent thinking of nothing, staring vacantly in front of her,
enjoying the cool and quiet of the evening. But Liza could not be left
alone long, several boys came along with a bat and a ball, and fixed
upon the road just in front of her for their pitch. Taking off their
coats they piled them up at the two ends, and were ready to begin.

'I say, old gal,' said one of them to Liza, 'come an' have a gime of
cricket, will yer?'

'Na, Bob, I'm tired.'

'Come on!'

'Na, I tell you I won't.'

'She was on the booze yesterday, an' she ain't got over it,' cried
another boy.

'I'll swipe yer over the snitch!' replied Liza to him, and then on
being asked again, said:

'Leave me alone, won't yer?'

'Liza's got the needle ter-night, thet's flat,' commented a third
member of the team.

'I wouldn't drink if I was you, Liza,' added another, with mock
gravity. 'It's a bad 'abit ter git into,' and he began rolling and
swaying about like a drunken man.

If Liza had been 'in form' she would have gone straight away and given
the whole lot of them a sample of her strength; but she was only
rather bored and vexed that they should disturb her quietness, so she
let them talk. They saw she was not to be drawn, and leaving her, set
to their game. She watched them for some time, but her thoughts
gradually lost themselves, and insensibly her mind was filled with a
burly form, and she was again thinking of Jim.

''E is a good sort ter want ter tike me ter the ply,' she said to
herself. 'Tom never arst me!'

Jim had said he would come out in the evening; he ought to be here
soon, she thought. Of course she wasn't going to the theatre with him,
but she didn't mind talking to him; she rather enjoyed being asked to
do a thing and refusing, and she would have liked another opportunity
of doing so. But he didn't come and he had said he would!

'I say, Bill,' she said at last to one of the boys who was fieldi