to this letter unless she
liked, and he would make an opportunity of calling upon her before very
long.

A week passed without reply.

By discreet inquiry Gammon learnt that Mrs. Clover had assumed the garb
of widowhood, and this was quite enough.

"There," he said to himself, "there's an end of lies!" And he shook his
shoulders as if to get quite clear of the unpleasant entanglement; for,
Mr. Gammon, though ingenious at a pinch, had no natural bent towards
falsehood. To be rid at almost the same moment of Mr. Clover and Polly
Sparkes seemed to him marvellous good luck; and in these bitter, sodden
days of the early year he was lighter hearted than for many months.

He had heard from Polly:

"DEAR MR. GAMMON,

"I don't think we are suited to each other, which is better for both
parties. I shall send you a wedding-card in a few days, and I'm sure I
wish you all happiness. And so I remain with my best respects,

"Yours truly
Miss SPARKES"

This time Mr. Gammon felt no restraint upon his mirth. He threw his
head back and roared joyously. That same day he went to a jeweller's
and purchased--for more than he could afford--a suitable trinket, and
sent it with a well-meaning note to Polly's address.

Winter brightened into spring, spring bloomed into summer. Gammon had
paid several visits to the china shop, where all was going very well
indeed. Minnie Clover now spent her evenings almost invariably with the
young man interested in ceramic art, but it never disturbed Gammon to
have ocular evidence of the fact. With Mrs. Clover he conversed in the
respectfully familiar tone of an old friend, now and then reporting
little matters which concerned his own welfare, such as his growing
conviction that at Quodlings' he had found a "permanency," and his
decision to go no more to Dulwich, to sell all his bow-wows, to find
another employment for leisure hours.

But he was not wholly at ease. Time after time he had purposed making a
confession to Mrs. Clover, time after time he "funked it"--his own
mental phrase--and put it off.

He grew discontented with his room at Mrs. Bubb's. In getting up these
bright mornings he looked with entirely new distaste upon the prospect
from his window at the back. Beneath lay parallel strips of ground,
divided from each other by low walls. These were called the "gardens"
of the houses in Kennington Road, but no blade of grass ever showed
upon the black, hard-trodden soil. Lank fowls r