out 'is knowing it."

She had found it, the nameless, ineluctable charm.

And so for those last days the Dinner became a high funereal ceremony,
increasing in valedictory splendour that proclaimed unmistakably, "Mr.
Rickman is going."

In a neighbouring street he had found a room, cheap and passably
clean, and (failing a financial miracle worked on his behalf) he would
move into it to-morrow. He was going, now that he would have given
anything to stay.

In the dining-room after dinner, Spinks with a dejected countenance,
sat guarding for the last time the sacred silence of Rickman. They had
finished their coffee, when the door that let out the maid with empty
cups let in Miss Bishop, Miss Bramble and Miss Walker.

First came Miss Bishop; she advanced in a side-long and embarrassed
manner, giggling, and her face for once was as red as her hair. She
carried a little wooden box which with an unaccustomed shyness she
asked him to accept. The sliding lid disclosed a dozen cedar pencils
side by side, their points all ready sharpened, also a card with the
inscription: "Mr. Rickman, with best wishes from Ada Bishop." At one
corner was a date suggesting that the gift marked an epoch; at the
other the letters P.T.O. The reverse displayed this legend, "If you
ever want any typing done, I'll always do it for _you_ at 6d. a thou.
_Only don't let on._ Yours, A.B." Now Miss Bishop's usual charge was,
as he knew, a shilling per thousand.

"Gentlemen," said she, explaining away her modest offering, "always
like anything that saves them trouble." At this point, Miss Bishop,
torn by a supreme giggle, vanished violently from the scene.

Mr. Rickman smiled sadly, but his heart remained as before. He had not
loved Miss Bishop.

Next came Miss Bramble with her gift mysteriously concealed in silver
paper. "All brain-workers," said Miss Bramble, "suffered from cold
feet." So she had just knitted him a pair of socks--"_bed_-socks" (in
a whisper), "that would help to keep him warm." Her poor old eyes were
scarlet, not so much from knitting the bed-socks, as from
contemplating the terrible possibility of his needing them.

Under Mr. Rickman's waistcoat there was the least little ghost of a
quiver. He had not loved Miss Bramble; but Miss Bramble had loved him.
She had loved him because he was young, and because he had sometimes
repeated to her the little dinner-table jests that she was too deaf to
hear.

Last of the three, very grave a