"Quite well, thank you; and I'm proud to say, slaving like a nigger for the good of my fellow-creatures. An ignorant man can hardly realise the amount of work it takes to get up a sale like this, but I shall bear the marks to my grave. Look at that!" and she held out towards him a pair of sunburned hands, shapely enough, but disfigured with sundry scars and bruises inflicted by hammer and chisel. Her look of pride in her wounds was comically in contrast to her companion's distress, as his glance wandered from the little hard-worked fingers to his own white hands,-- almond-nailed, soft-palmed, taper-fingered, the hands of a man who has lived an idle life, and known little or nothing of the reality of work. Nan's eyes followed his, and she laughed in amused fashion. "Mine look like the man's, and yours like the woman's! The contrast makes mine browner than ever. How do you manage to keep them so white?" "Don't!" said Gervase shortly. "I am not at all proud of them, Miss Nan. They have been useless enough hitherto, and if they find any work now, it is more your doing than their own. I have tried to turn over a new leaf since I saw you last, and to remember your axiom--" "And did you find them? Did you help them over? Were many lame, and not able to walk?" "Crowds! Dozens! Scores! The whole parish seems hobbling; and I foresee that that stile will keep me busy, now that I have begun. It was astonishing how many cripples seemed waiting for my advent, and what a lot of `helping over' they required. When they had recovered from the shock of discovering that I was showing some interest in their affairs, they were not at all bashful about stating their desires. One man wanted a new roof to his cottage--his wife was rheumatic, and objected to the rain coming through on her bed. I had previously refused the request through my agent, but when I went to inspect the place, I could not deny that repairs were needed. The woman showed me her fingers, too--most unpleasant! I would rebuild the whole cottage rather than look at them again!" He shrugged his shoulders, with a relapse into his old affectation of manner, which brought Nan's eyes upon him with a flash of indignation; but she refrained from remonstrance, as, after all, he had granted her request; and he continued his story uninterrupted.