sitting opposite him, with her arms folded, and only busy in watching
his dinner with a smile of happiness.

"Why, Lord forgive me!" said Trotty, dropping his knife and fork. "My
dove! Meg! why didn't you tell me what a beast I was?"

"Father!"

"Sitting here," said Trotty, in a sorrowful manner, "cramming, and
stuffing, and gorging myself, and you before me there, never so much as
breaking your precious fast, nor wanting to, when----"

"But I have broken it, father," interposed his daughter, laughing, "all
to bits. I have had my dinner."

"Nonsense," said Trotty. "Two dinners in one day! It ain't possible! You
might as well tell me that two New Year's days will come together, or
that I have had a gold head all my life, and never changed it."

"I have had my dinner, father, for all that," said Meg, coming nearer to
him. "And if you will go on with yours, I'll tell you how and where, and
how your dinner came to be brought and--and something else besides."

Toby still appeared not to believe her; but she looked into his face
with her clear eyes, and, laying her hand upon his shoulder, motioned
him to go on while the meat was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and
fork again and went to work, but much more slowly than before, and
shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with himself.

"I had my dinner, father," said Meg, after a little hesitation,
"with--with Richard. His dinner-time was early; and as he brought his
dinner with him when he came to see me, we--we had it together, father."

Trotty took a little beer and smacked his lips. Then he said "Oh!"
because she waited.

"And Richard says, father--" Meg resumed, then stopped.

"What does Richard say, Meg?" asked Toby.

"Richard says, father--" Another stoppage.

"Richard's a long time saying it," said Toby.

"He says, then, father," Meg continued, lifting up her eyes at last, and
speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly, "another year is nearly gone,
and where is the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so
unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now? He says we are
poor now, father, and we shall be poor then; but we are young now, and
years will make us old before we know it. He says that if we wait,
people as poor as we are, until we see our way quite clearly, the way
will be a narrow one indeed--the common way--the grave, father."

A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon his boldness
largely to deny it.