However, I told Gyp that it didn't quite suit your prim
and proper notions, so she's going to send you another, that I hope
will please you better. She's always being photographed; in fact, the
photographers ask her if they may take her for nothing."

Presently the new photograph came, with a little silly note from the
girl. This time the young lady was seen in a black satin evening bodice,
cut square, with little puff sleeves, and black lace hanging down her
beautiful arms.

"I wonder if she ever wears anything except evening clothes," said Mrs.
Morel sarcastically. "I'm sure I ought to be impressed."

"You are disagreeable, mother," said Paul. "I think the first one with
bare shoulders is lovely."

"Do you?" answered his mother. "Well, I don't."

On the Monday morning the boy got up at six to start work. He had the
season-ticket, which had cost such bitterness, in his waistcoat pocket.
He loved it with its bars of yellow across. His mother packed his dinner
in a small, shut-up basket, and he set off at a quarter to seven to
catch the 7.15 train. Mrs. Morel came to the entry-end to see him off.

It was a perfect morning. From the ash tree the slender green fruits
that the children call "pigeons" were twinkling gaily down on a little
breeze, into the front gardens of the houses. The valley was full of a
lustrous dark haze, through which the ripe corn shimmered, and in which
the steam from Minton pit melted swiftly. Puffs of wind came. Paul
looked over the high woods of Aldersley, where the country gleamed, and
home had never pulled at him so powerfully.

"Good-morning, mother," he said, smiling, but feeling very unhappy.

"Good-morning," she replied cheerfully and tenderly.

She stood in her white apron on the open road, watching him as he
crossed the field. He had a small, compact body that looked full of
life. She felt, as she saw him trudging over the field, that where he
determined to go he would get. She thought of William. He would have
leaped the fence instead of going round the stile. He was away in
London, doing well. Paul would be working in Nottingham. Now she had
two sons in the world. She could think of two places, great centres of
industry, and feel that she had put a man into each of them, that these
men would work out what SHE wanted; they were derived from her, they
were of her, and their works also would be hers. All the morning long
she thought of Paul.

At eight o'clock he climbed the dis