their return journey, before beginning the steep
ascent of the hill; Giles sat stiffly down now, and once more stared
about him. By-and-by the town clock struck seven and he instinctively
rose to his feet, and began hurriedly to retrace his steps, but pulled
himself up of a sudden.

"Seven o'clock! It 'ud seem more nat'ral to be goin' up-along. I was
nigh forgettin' I be comed away! Mrs. Tapper 'ull think I bain't
a-comin' if I don't hurry up."

This time he made up his mind to continue his journey without further
interruptions, and very soon arrived at the end of the lane, and even
at the third house on the right, where he was duly received by Mrs.
Tapper. She was most civil, not to say respectful; called him "Sir"
and "Mr. Maine," hustled her children out of his way, installed him in
the elbow-chair in the corner, and waited upon him at tea-time as
though he had been a gentleman born.

At first Giles rather enjoyed it, but presently the feeling of
loneliness and strangeness, against which he had been struggling all
day, returned with redoubled force; and when he was finally ushered
into his clean tidy little room, and Mrs. Tapper, after calling his
attention to the various preparations she had made for his comfort,
left him to himself, he sat down on the side of the bed and groaned
aloud.

[Illustration: GILES IN LUCK
"Waited upon him at tea time as though he had been a gentleman born"]

They would just be about "turnin' in" at the Union, and Jim, laying
himself down on the pallet next to his, would be making the
time-honoured joke about the absence of spring-mattresses and
feather-beds, with which he was usually wont to regale the other
inmates at this hour. As Giles turned down the spotless
lavender-scented sheets he thought longingly of the workhouse twill.

A week later Giles was permitted to visit his former friends, laden
with such a store of buns and baccy as would have ensured his welcome,
even had not most of his cronies been genuinely glad to see him.

"Dear heart alive!" cried Jim, receiving his modicum of twist with a
delighted chuckle, "these be new times, these be. Who'd ever ha'
thought o' Giles Maine walkin' in like a lard wi' presents for us
all?"

But Giles was looking round with a foolish wavering sort of smile.

"It'd seem real homely in here," he remarked. "Ah! it do fur sure.
There be the papers as us'al, I see--I do miss papers awful out
yonder."

"Why, to be sure," cried one of th