a squeaking which put all the
others in the shade sounded from above. It crossed the floor on hurried
excursions to different parts of the room, and then, hesitating for a
moment at the head of the stairs, came slowly and ponderously down until
Mrs. Vickers, looking somewhat nervous, stood revealed before her
expectant husband. In scornful surprise he gazed at a blue cloth dress,
a black velvet cape trimmed with bugles, and a bonnet so aggressively new
that it had not yet accommodated itself to Mrs. Vickers's style of
hair-dressing.

"Go on!" he breathed. "Go on! Don't mind me. What, you--you--you're
not going to church?"

Mrs. Vickers glanced at the books in her hand--also new--and trembled.

"And why not?" demanded Selina. "Why shouldn't we?"

Mr. Vickers took another amazed glance round and his brow darkened.

"Where did you get the money?" he inquired.

"Saved it," said his daughter, reddening despite herself.

"Saved it?" repeated the justly-astonished Mr. Vickers. "Saved it? Ah!
out of my money; out of the money I toil and moil for--out of the money
that ought to be spent on food. No wonder you're always complaining that
it ain't enough. I won't 'ave it, d'ye hear? I'll have my rights;
I'll----"

"Don't make so much noise," said his daughter, who was stooping down to
ease one of Mrs. Vickers's boots. "You would have fours, mother, and I
told you what it would be."

"He said that I ought to wear threes by rights," said Mrs. Vickers;
"I used to."

"And I s'pose," said Mr. Vickers, who had been listening to these remarks
with considerable impatience--"I s'pose there's a bran' new suit o'
clothes, and a pair o' boots, and 'arf-a-dozen shirts, and a new hat hid
upstairs for me?"

"Yes, they're hid all right," retorted the dutiful Miss Vickers. "You go
upstairs and amuse yourself looking for'em. Go and have a game of 'hot
boiled beans' all by yourself."

"Why, you must have been stinting me for years," continued Mr. Vickers,
examining the various costumes in detail. "This is what comes o' keeping
quiet and trusting you--not but what I've 'ad my suspicions. My own kids
taking the bread out o' my mouth and buying boots with it; my own wife
going about in a bonnet that's took me weeks and weeks to earn."

[Illustration:"'Why, you must have been stinting me for years,' continued
Mr. Vickers."]

His words fell on deaf ears. No adjutant getting his regiment ready for
a march-past could have