d remember me. Women allers does. Be'n purty chirk this
summer?"

"Very well, I thank you, sir," and Miss Butterworth dropped a courtesy,
and then, sitting down, she pointed him to a chair.

Jim laid his cap on the floor, placed his roll of cloth upright between
his knees, and, pulling out his bandana handkerchief, wiped his
perspiring face.

"I've brung a little job fur ye," said Jim.

"Oh, I can't do it," said Miss Butterworth at once. "I'm crowded to
death with work. It's a hurrying time of year."

"Yes, I knowed that, but this is a pertickler job."

"Oh, they are all particular jobs," responded Miss Butterworth, shaking
her head.

"But this is a job fur pertickler folks."

"Folks are all alike to me," said Miss Butterworth, sharply.

"These clo'es," said Jim, "are fur a good man an' a little boy. They has
nothin' but rags on 'em, an' won't have till ye make these clo'es. The
man is a pertickler friend o' mine, an' the boy is a cute little chap,
an' he can pray better nor any minister in Sevenoaks. If you knowed what
I know, Miss Butterworth, I don't know but you'd do somethin' that you'd
be ashamed of, an' I don't know but you'd do something that I sh'd be
ashamed of. Strange things has happened, an' if ye want to know what
they be, you must make these clo'es."

Jim had aimed straight at one of the most powerful motives in human
nature, and the woman began to relent, and to talk more as if it were
possible for her to undertake the job.

"It may be," said the tailoress, thinking, and scratching the top of her
head with a hair-pin, "that I _can_ work it in; but I haven't the
measure."

"Well, now, let's see," said Jim, pondering. "Whar is they about such a
man? Don't ye remember a man that used to be here by the name
of--of--Benedict, wasn't it?--a feller about up to my ear--only fleshier
nor he was? An' the little feller--well, he's bigger nor Benedict's
boy--bigger, leastways, nor he was then."

Miss Butterworth rose to her feet, went up to Jim, and looked him
sharply in the eyes.

"Can you tell me anything about Benedict and his boy?"

"All that any feller knows I know," said Jim, "an' I've never telled
nobody in Sevenoaks."

"Jim Fenton, you needn't be afraid of me."

"Oh, I ain't. I like ye better nor any woman I seen."

"But you needn't be afraid to tell me," said Miss Butterworth, blushing.

"An' will ye make the clo'es?"

"Yes, I'll make the clothes, if I make them for nothing, and si