perature, but at supper he drank only two
glasses of mild ale, and casually remarked, as he poured out the
second, that he had serious thoughts of becoming a total abstainer.

"You might do worse than that," said Mrs. Clover meaningly, but with
good nature.

"You think so? Say the word, Mrs. Clover, and I'll do it."

"I shan't say the word, because I know you couldn't live without a
glass of beer. There's no harm in that. But when--"

The remark was left incomplete.

"Hush!" came from Mrs. Bubb in the same moment. "Wasn't that the front
door?"

All listened. A heavy step was ascending the stairs.

"Only Mr. Cheeseman," said the landlady with a sigh of agitation. "Of
course it couldn't be Polly yet."

Not till the repast was comfortably despatched did Mr. Gammon give a
sign that it might now be well to inform Mrs. Clover of what had
happened. He nodded gravely to Mrs. Bubb, who with unaffected
nervousness, causing her to ramble and stumble for many minutes in
mazes of circumlocution, at length conveyed the fact to her anxious
listener that Polly Sparkes had said something or other which implied a
knowledge of Mr. Clover's whereabouts. Committed to this central fact,
and urged by Mrs. Clover's growing impatience, the good woman came out
at length with her latest version of Polly's remarkable utterance.

"And what she said was this, Mrs. Clover. When next you goes
tale-telling to my awnt, she says--just as nasty as she could--when
next you goes making trouble with my Aunt Louisa, she says, you can
tell her, she says, that there's nobody but me knows where her 'usband
is, and what he's a-doin' of but I wouldn't let her know, she says, not
if it was to save her from death and burial in the workus! That's what
Polly said to me this very morning, and the words made that impression
on my mind that I shall never forget them to the last day of my life."

"Did you ever!" exclaimed or rather murmured Mrs. Clover, for she was
astonished and agitated. Her face lost its wholesome tone for a moment,
her hands moved as if to repel something, and at length she sat quite
still gazing at Mrs. Bubb.

"And don't you think it queer," put in Mr. Gammon, "that we never hit
on that?"

"I'm sure I should never have thought of such a thing," replied Mrs.
Clover heavily, despondently.

"And who knows," cried Mrs. Bubb, "whether it's true after all? Polly's
been that nasty, how if she's made it up just to spite us?"

Mrs. Clover no