gaze a bone. A woman
with a long, sharp nose, two bright, ferret-like brown eyes, and a
rasping voice, that seems to have worn itself thin asking hard questions
of Providence, from sunrise till dark.

The table has been spread for two, but the second party at the banquet,
a gamin son aged seven, has swallowed his own and all he could get of
his mother's share, and betakened himself to the streets, night though
it be.

The woman moves about, now and then muttering to herself as she works.
The room is shabbily furnished, and not over neat, for its mistress
spends her days in the great mill hard by, and housekeeping has become
a secondary matter. Only the needs of life find their demands honored in
this part of W----. Too often needs get choked and die of the smoke and
the cinders.

It is late, for the woman has been doing extra work; it is stormy, too,
blustering and spattering rain. Yet she pauses occasionally and listens
to a passing footfall, as though she expected a visitor.

At last, when the final touch has made the room as tidy as it ever is,
or as she thinks it need be, there comes a shuffling of feet outside,
and a tremendous thump on the rickety door. After which, as if he was
sufficiently heralded, in comes a man, a big man, muffled to the eyes in
a huge coat, which he slowly draws down and draws off, disclosing to the
half curious, half contemptuous gaze of the woman the auburn locks and
highly tinted countenance of Mr. John Burrill.

"So," she says, in her shrillest voice, "It's _you_, is it? It seems one
is never to be rid of you at any price."

"Yes, it's me--all of me," the man replies, as if confirming a doubtful
statement. "Why, now; you act as if you didn't expect me."

"And no more I did," says the woman sullenly and most untruthfully.
"It's a wonder to me that you can't stay away from here, after all
that's come and gone."

"Well, I can't," he retorts, amiably rubbing his hands together.
"Anyhow, I won't, which means about the same thing. Where's the little
duffer?"

"He's where you were at his age, I expect," she replies grimly.

"Well, and if he only keeps on as I have, until he gets up to my present
age, he won't be in a bad boat, eh, Mrs. Burrill the first."

"He's got too much of his mother's grit to be where _you_ are, John
Burrill, livin' a lackey among people that despise you because you have
got a hand on 'em somewhere. I want to know if you don't think they will
choke you off s