doubt--and if he--meaning you--don't tell the truth, out he goes if I
have the chucking of him myself and a police-court summings over it. So
Bart goes to Wargrove, and he find out that you speaks true, which means
that you're a gent, sir, if ever there was one, in spite of your frantic
pa, so I hopes as you'll marry my flower, and make her happy--bless
you," and Deborah spread a large pair of mottled arms over Paul's head.

"It's all true," said he, good-naturedly; "my father and I don't get on
well together, and I came to make a name in London. But for all you
know, Deborah, I may be a scamp."

"That you are not," she burst out. "Why, Bart's been follerin' you
everywhere, and he and me, which is to be his lawful wife and master,
knows all about you and that there place in Bloomsbury, and where you go
and where you don't go. And let me tell you, sir," again she lifted her
finger threateningly, "if you wasn't what you oughter be, never would
you see my pretty one again. No, not if I had to wash the floor in your
blue blood--for blue it is, if what Bart learned was true of them stone
figgers in the church," and she gasped.

Paul was silent for a few minutes, looking at the floor. He wondered
that he had not guessed all this. Often it had seemed strange to him
that so faithful and devoted a couple of retainers as Bart and Deborah
Junk should favor his wooing of Sylvia and keep it from their master,
seeing that they knew nothing about him. But from the woman's
story--which he saw no reason to disbelieve--the two had not rested
until they had been convinced of his respectability and of the truth of
his story. Thus they had permitted the wooing to continue, and Paul
privately applauded them for their tact in so making sure of him without
committing themselves to open speech. "All the same," he said aloud, and
following his own thoughts, "it's strange that you should wish her to
marry me."

Miss Junk made a queer answer. "I'm glad enough to see her marry anyone
respectable, let alone a gent, as you truly are, with stone figgers in
churches and a handsome face, though rather dark for my liking. Mr.
Beecot, twenty year ago, a slip of ten, I come to nuss the baby as was
my loving angel upstairs, and her ma had just passed away to jine them
as lives overhead playing harps. All these years I've never heard a
young step on them stairs, save Miss Sylvia's and Bart's, him having
come five years ago, and a brat he was. And would y