dressed him.

"You'll a-remember of this occasion," he said, "when you gets older."

The little boy turned his black eyes from his mother to him who had
spoken last.

"It's a beautiful wreath," continued Creed. "I could smell of it all the
way up the stairs. There's been no expense spared; there's white laylock
in it--that's a class of flower that's very extravagant."

A train of thought having been roused too strong for his discretion, he
added: "I saw that young girl yesterday. She came interrogatin' of me in
the street."

On Mrs. Hughs' face, where till now expression had been buried, came
such a look as one may see on the face of an owl-hard, watchful, cruel;
harder, more cruel, for the softness of the big dark eyes.

"She'd show a better feeling," she said, "to keep a quiet tongue. Sit
still, Stanley!"

Once more the little boy stopped drumming his heels, and shifted his
stare from the old butler back to her who spoke. The cab, which had
seemed to hesitate and start, as though jibbing at something in the
road, resumed its ambling pace. Creed looked through the well-closed
window. There before him, so long that it seemed to have no end, like a
building in a nightmare, stretched that place where he did not mean to
end his days. He faced towards the horse again. The colour had deepened
in his nose. He spoke:

"If they'd a-give me my last edition earlier, 'stead of sending of it
down after that low-class feller's taken all my customers, that'd make
a difference to me o' two shillin's at the utmost in the week, and all
clear savin's." To these words, dark with hidden meaning, he received no
answer save the drumming of the small boy's heels; and, reverting to the
subject he had been distracted from, he murmured: "She was a-wearin' of
new clothes."

He was startled by the fierce tone of a voice he hardly knew. "I don't
want to hear about her; she's not for decent folk to talk of."

The old butler looked round askance. The seamstress was trembling
violently. Her fierceness at such a moment shocked him. "'Dust to
dust,'" he thought.

"Don't you be considerate of it," he said at last, summoning all his
knowledge of the world; "she'll come to her own place." And at the sight
of a slow tear trickling over her burning cheek, he added hurriedly:
"Think of your baby--I'll see yer through. Sit still, little boy--sit
still! Ye're disturbin' of your mother."

Once more the little boy stayed the drumming of his heels t