stockpot, is not easily shaken off. I asked after the
old folks, and if they were still stopping with him.

"Yes," he said, "for the present. Of course, a man can't be expected to
keep people for ever; so many mouths to fill is hard work these times,
and everybody sponges on a man just because he's good-natured."

"And how are you getting on?" I asked.

"Tolerably well, thank you, sir. The Lord provides for His servants," he
replied with a smug smile. "I have got a little shop now in the
Commercial Road."

"Whereabouts?" I persisted. "I would like to call and see you."

He gave me the address reluctantly, and said he would esteem it a great
pleasure if I would honour him by a visit, which was a palpable lie.

The following afternoon I went. I found the place to be a pawnbroker's
shop, and from all appearances he must have been doing a very brisk
business. He was out himself attending a temperance committee, but his
old father was behind the counter, and asked me inside. Though it was a
chilly day there was no fire in the parlour, and the two old folks sat
one each side of the empty hearth, silent and sad. They seemed little
more pleased to see me than their son, but after a while Mrs. Burridge's
natural garrulity asserted itself, and we fell into chat.

I asked what had become of his sister-in-law, the lady with the swollen
face.

"I couldn't rightly tell you, sir," answered the old lady, "she ain't
livin' with us now. You see, sir," she continued, "John's got different
notions to what 'e used to 'ave. 'E don't cotten much to them as ain't
found grace, and poor Jane never did 'ave much religion!"

"And the little one?" I inquired. "The one with the curls?"

"What, Bessie, sir?" said the old lady. "Oh, she's out at service, sir;
John don't think it good for young folks to be idle."

"Your son seems to have changed a good deal, Mrs. Burridge," I remarked.

"Ay, sir," she assented, "you may well say that. It nearly broke my 'art
at fust; everythin' so different to what it 'ad been. Not as I'd stand
in the boy's light. If our being a bit uncomfortable like in this world
is a-going to do 'im any good in the next me and father ain't the ones to
begrudge it, are we, old man?"

The "old man" concurred grumpily.

"Was it a sudden conversion?" I asked. "How did it come about?"

"It was a young woman as started 'im off," explained the old lady. "She
come round to our place one day a-collectin' fo