d
a secret that should have pleased a Government lately reduced to
appointing a commission to inquire into a falling birth-rate.

"This," said grandma in explanation, "is a girl who used to be
milliner in Trashe's store in Noonoon--one of them give-herself-airs
things, like all these county-jumpin' fools! W'en you go to buy a
thing off of them they look as if you wasn't fit to tie their
shoe-laces, and they ain't got a stitch to their back, only a few
pence a-week from eternal standin' on their feet, till they're all
give way, and only fit for the hospital. I won't say but this one was
a sprightly enough young body and carried her head high. And there
was a feller came to town, was stayin' there at Jimmeny's pub. for a
time, an' walkin' round as if Noonoon wasn't a big enough place for
the likes of him to own. He talked mighty big about meat export trade,
an' that was the end of his glory. He married this girl that was
trimmin' hats, an' she thought she was doin' a stroke to ketch such a
bug, an' now she lives in that little place built bang on the road as
you go into town. Larry says he often takes her some meat, he's afraid
she'll starve; an' you know, though he'll take you down in some ways,
he's terrible good-natured in others, and that is the way with most of
us; we have our good an' bad points. But the poor thing! is that what
she has come to? I ain't had a family of me own not to be able to
sympathise with her."

"Well, she don't deserve no sympathy, she upholds him in his pride,"
said Mrs Bray.

"Pride! His pride," snorted grandma, "it's of the skunk order. He'd
make use of every one because he thinks he's an English swell, and
then wouldn't speak to them if he met them out no more than they were
dogs. I don't think there's a single thing he could do to save his
life. If there's a bit of wood to be chopped, she's got to do it, an'
yet he'd think a decent honest workin' man, who was able to keep his
wife and family comfortable, wasn't made of as good flesh and blood as
him. That ain't what I call pride."

"There's one thing, if I ever fell in love with a man he'd have to be
a man and not a crawler," said Dawn. "Some girls think if they get a
bit of a swell he's something; but I wouldn't care if a man were the
Prince of Wales and Lord Muck in one, if he couldn't do things without
muddling, I'd throw water on him."

"What about young Eweword, are you goin' to throw water on _him_?"
laughed Mrs Bray.

"Ask