n Mrs. Verstage had ever been.

"Matabel," she said, and drew her lips together and contracted her
brows, "whatever father may scheme about making a will, it's all
gammon and nonsense. I don't know whether he's said any tomfoolery
about it to you, or may do so in time to come. Don't think nuthin'
of it. Why should he make a will? He has but Iver to whom he can
leave what he has. If he don't make a will--where's the odds? The
law will see to it; that everything goes to Iver, just as it ort."

"You will write to Iver to come?"

"Yes, I will. Matters can't be worse than they be, and they may
come to a betterment. O dear life of me! What I have suffered all
these years, parted from my only child."

"I have tried to do what I could for you, dear mother."

"Oh, yes"--the bitterness was still oozing up in the woman's heart,
engalling her own mind--"that I know well enough. But then you
ain't my flesh and blood. You may call me mother, and you may
speak of Simon as father, but that don't alter matters, no more
nor when Samuel Doit would call the cabbage plants broccaloes did
it make 'em grow great flower heads like passon's wigs. Iver is
my son, my very own child. You, Matabel, are only--"

"Only what, mother?"

"Only a charity girl."

CHAPTER IX.

BIDEABOUT.

The words were hardly spoken before a twinge of conscience made
Mrs. Verstage aware that she had given pain to the girl who had
been to her as a daughter.

Yet she justified herself to herself with the consideration that
it was in the end kindest to cut down ruthlessly any springing
expectation that might have started to life at the words of Simon
Verstage. The hostess cast a glance at Mehetabel, and saw that her
face was quivering, that all color had gone out of her cheeks, that
her hands were contracted as with the cramp.

"I had no wish to hurt you," said the landlady; "but facks are
facks, and you may pull down the blinds over 'em wi'out putting
them out o' existence. There's Laura Tickner--got a face like a
peony. She sez it's innade modesty; but we all knows it's
arrysippelas, and Matthew Maunder tells us his nose comes from
indigestion; but it's liquor, as I've the best reason to know.
Matabel, I love you well, but always face facks. You can't get rid
of facks any more than you can get rid of fleas out o' poultry."

Mrs. Verstage disappeared through the doorway. Mehetabel seated
herself on the bench. She could not follow the hostess, for h