tenance, "it do grieve me to see you like this--a'most as much
as wen my--"

"You're drunk!" interrupted Mrs Lockley, with a look of mingled
sternness and indignation.

"Well, my dear," replied Mrs Mooney, with a deprecatory smile, "that
ain't an uncommon state o' things, an' you've no call to be 'ard on a
poor widdy like yourself takin' a little consolation now an' then when
she can get it. I just thought I'd like to comfort--"

"I don't want no comfort," cried Mrs Lockley in a sharp tone. "Leave
me. Go away!"

There was something so terrible in the mingled look of grief and anger
which disturbed the handsome features of the young wife, that Mrs
Mooney, partly awed and partly alarmed, turned at once and left the
house. She did not feel aggrieved, only astonished and somewhat
dismayed. After a few moments of meditation she set off, intending to
relieve her feelings in the "Blue Boar." On her way she chanced to meet
no less a personage than Pat Stiver, who, with his hands in his pockets
and his big boots clattering over the stones, was rolling along in the
opposite direction.

"Pat, my boy!" exclaimed the woman in surprise, "wherever did you come
from?"

"From the North Sea," said Pat, looking up at his questioner with an
inquiring expression. "I say, old woman, drunk again?"

"Well, boy, who denyses of it?"

"Ain't you ashamed of yourself?"

"No, I ain't. Why should I? Who cares whether I'm drunk or sober?"

"Who cares, you unnat'ral old bundle o' dirty clo'es? Don't Eve care?
An' don't Fred Martin an' Bob Lumpy care? An' don't _I_ care, worse
than all of 'em put together, except Eve?"

"You, boy?" exclaimed the woman.

"Yes, me. But look here, old gal; where are you goin'? To have a
drink, I suppose?"

"Jus' so. That's 'xactly where I'm a-steerin' to."

"Well, now," cried Pat, seizing the woman's hand, "come along, an' I'll
give you somethin' to drink. Moreover, I'll treat you to some noos
as'll cause your blood to curdle, an' your flesh to creep, an' your eyes
to glare, an your hair to stand on end!"

Thus adjured, and with curiosity somewhat excited, Mrs Mooney suffered
herself to be led to that temperance coffee-tavern in Gorleston to which
we have already referred.

"Ain't it comf'r'able?" asked the boy, as his companion gazed around
her. "Now then, missis," he said to the attendant, with the air of an
old frequenter of the place, "coffee and wittles for two--hot. Here,
sit do