and holding it over the candle. "We're parting company
to-night. I'm going where I can't take you along with me--I'm going to
the divil. So long! S'long! I'll never strook you, nor smooth you, nor
kiss you no more! S'long!"

He put the curl to his lips, holding it tremblingly between his great
fingers and thumb. Then he clutched it in his palm, reeled a step
backward, swung the candle about and dashed it on to the floor.

"I can't, I can't," he cried, "God A'mighty, I can't. It's
Nelly--Nelly--my Nelly--my little Nell!"

The curl went back into his breast. He sank into a chair, covered his
face with his hands, and wept aloud as little children do.

CHAPTER VII.

When Mrs. Quiggin came down to breakfast next morning, a change both in
her appearance and in her manner caught the eye and ear of Jenny Crow.
Her fringe was combed back from her forehead, and her speech, even in
the first salutation, gave a delicate hint of the broad Manx accent.
"Ho, ho! what's this?" thought Jenny, and she had not long to wait for
an answer.

An English waiter, who affected the ways of a French one, was fussing
around with needless inquiries--_would Madame have this; would Madame
do that?_--and when this person had scraped himself out of the room Mrs.
Quiggin drew a long breath and said, "I don't think I care so very much
for this sort of thing after all, Jenny."

"What sort of thing, Nelly?"

"Waiters and servants, and hotels and things," said Nelly.

"Really!" said Jenny.

"It's wonderful how much happier you are when you can be your own
servant, and boil your own kettle and mash your own tea, and lay your
own cloth, and clear away and wash up afterward."

"Do you say so, Nelly?"

"Deed I do, though, Jenny. There's some life in the like of that--seeing
to yourself and such like. And what are the pleasures of towns and
streets and hotels and servants, and such botherations to those of a
sweet old farm that is all your own somewhere? And, to think--to think,
Jenny, getting up in the summer morning before the sun itself, when the
light is that cool dead gray, and the last stars are dying off, and the
first birds are calling to their mates that are still asleep, and
then going round to the cowhouse in the clear, crisp, ringing air,
and startling the rabbits and the hares that are hopping about in the
haggard--O! it's delightful!"

"Really now!" said Jenny.

"And then the men coming down stairs, half awake and yawning, in