Again she laughed.

'That's as much as to say, Jack, you'll be sorry when there's no jam.

It isn't _me_, not it!'

'Don't be so sure. I shall come and see you often enough, and not for jam, either. You're always jolly with me. And I don't see why you can't come as well. Father 'ud like you to.'

Totty regarded him with a smile for an instant, then asked, carelessly:

'How do you know that? As if it made any difference to your father!'

'But he's said he wished you was coming. He said so day before yesterday.'

'Nonsense! Now get off to bed. He'll be back, and we shall both get scolded.'

Jack drew to the door, but Totty recalled him.

'What an idea, for your father to say he wished I was coming! Tell me how he said it.'

'Why, it was about Nelly. We was talking and saying Nelly 'ud miss you.

And father said, half to himself like, 'Nelly wouldn't be sorry if Miss Nancarrow 'ud come and be with her always, and I dare say somebody else wouldn't be sorry, either.''

'Why, you silly boy, he meant you, of course.'

'Oh no, he didn't. Think I can't tell what he meant!'

'Run off to bed! I think I hear your father coming in.'

Jack made a rush, and in one minute and a half was under the bed-clothes.

The removal which Bunce was about to effect signified an improvement of circumstances. It was time for his luck to turn. Year after year he had found himself still at grip with poverty. The shadow of his evil domestic experiences lengthened as he drew further away, and it seemed as if he would never get beyond it. To a man of any native delicacy, the memory of bondage to a hateful woman clings like a long disease which impoverishes the blood; there is only one way of eradicating it, and that is with the aid of a strong, wholesome, new emotion. And at length Bunce began to feel that the past was really past; one sign of it was the better fortune which enabled him to earn more money. One of his children was dead, but the other two were growing in health of mind and body, and he could clothe them better, could look forward to their future, at last, without that sinking of the heart which at times had made him pause by night on one of the river bridges and long for a moment's madness that he might plunge and have done with everything.

Few men had come out of darkness into the light of a sober working day with less help than he had had. It was his nature to keep silence on his difficulties. He did not much care to hold continuous friendship with any man, for, like all who have the habit of talking to themselves, he was conscious that his companionship lacked attraction.

Moreover--a thing which superficial observers do not realise--like all who are most genuinely at odds with the world, the first head of his quarrel was with himself. He was only too well aware of his own defects and errors. He felt himself to be unamiable, often gross of understanding, always ready to fall into a blunder which other men would avoid. He had stood in his own way as often as he had been balked by others, perhaps oftener.

Now he was going to risk a step forward, was going to leave his single room lodging and take two rooms in a brighter street some distance away. They would be vacant for him a fortnight hence, and he had money enough to buy furniture. Yet he did not look forward to the change as cheerfully as might have been expected.

For one reason, and for one only, the old abode was preferable to him; it was a reason of such weight that it cost him no little exertion of common sense to put it aside. At the same time, it _had_ to be put aside, and most resolutely, for, whenever it occupied his mind, he soon found himself uttering contemptuous remarks upon his own thick-headed folly. He would sometimes blurt out such words as 'fool--idiot--blockhead,' as he walked along the street, astonishing passers-by who could not be supposed to know that the speaker was applying these epithets to himself.

On Sunday evening, a day or two after the conversation just reported between Jack and Totty, Bunce took his children to Battersea Park. When there, he did not walk about among the people, but sought a retired piece of lawn and sat down to enjoy a pipe. Nelly had brought a doll with her, and found delectable occupation in explaining to it all the various objects which might reasonably excite its curiosity in such a place. Jack talked with his father of chemistry, of his school teachers, of what he would be when he was a man. Their conversation was interrupted by Nelly's exclaiming:

'See, there's Miss Nancarrow!'

Totty was coming over the grass at a little distance, between two companions, girls dressed with an emphasis of Sunday elegance which made her look rather brown and plain by contrast. Totty never cared to spend much on clothes, a singular feature of her character. When the three were passing at a distance of twenty yards, Nelly cried out with shrill voice:

'Miss Nancarrow!'

'Hush, child!' said her father, more annoyed than seemed necessary.

'Don't scream at people in that way.'

Nelly was abashed, but her cry had caught Totty's ear. The latter nodded, laughed, and went on with her friends.

'I say, father,' Jack began, 'do you know what I think?'

'What, boy?'

'Why, I think if you asked Miss Nancarrow to come and take a room in the new house, she would.'

'Why on earth should I ask her to do such a thing?' inquired Bunce, laying down his pipe on the grass; it had gone out since Totty's passing. He looked at his son with bent brows, and rather fiercely.

'Well, I know I'd like her to, and so would Nelly. I can get on with Miss Nancarrow, 'cause she's got so much sense. I don't think much of other women.'

Bunce grubbed up roots of grass with his hard, blunt fingers. Then he took up his pipe again and turned the stem about between his teeth. And the while he cast glances at Jack, side glances, half savage.

'What makes you think she'd come?' he inquired at length, with a blundering attempt at indifference of tone.

'I talked to her about it the other night.'

'Oh, you did, did you? And what business had you to talk about such things, I'd like to know?'

'I don't see no harm. I told her we'd all be glad if she'd come.'

'What the confusion! And who told you to say any such thing?'

Jack was amazed at the outburst of wrath he had provoked.

'Well, father,' he muttered, 'I've heard you say yourself that you'd be glad if she was coming.'

'Then I'll thank you not to repeat what I say. Leave Miss Nancarrow alone. If I find you've talked to her in that way again, you and me 'll quarrel, Jack.'

The boy fell into a fit of sulks, and drew to a little distance, where he lay fiat, beating the earth vigorously with a stick.

Then it strangely happened that someone came round the bushes, in the shadow of which the three were reposing, and that it was no other than Miss Nancarrow, this time unaccompanied. Bunce did not notice her till she stood before him, then he jumped to his feet.

'Don't disturb yourself, Mr. Bunce,' said Totty, with her usual self-command. 'I'm only going to have a talk with Nelly, that's all.'

She sat down on the grass by the little one, and began a grave dialogue on the subject of certain ailments from which the doll had recently recovered.

It had been nursed through measles--Nelly having had them not long ago--and its face still showed signs of the disease.

Jack was not disposed to talk. His discretion had been impugned, and at Jack's age one feels anything of that kind shrewdly. Letting his eyes wander about the portion of park that lay before them, he saw at a little distance the nucleus of a religious meeting. At any other time he would have scorned to pay attention to such a phenomenon; at present he was glad of any opportunity of asserting his independence. He knew his father ridiculed prayer-meetings, consequently he rose and began to walk in the direction of the group of people.

'Where are you going, Jack?' cried Bunce.

'Only for a walk. I'll come back.'

His father acquiesced. Totty suspended her talk and gazed after him for a moment. Then she turned to Bunce.

'So you've found rooms, Mr. Bunce?' she said, with a piece of sorrel between her lips.

'Yes, I've got two that'll suit us, I think.'