Six years earlier, when she had figured as the only and hard-worked daughter of a third—rate and unsuccessful country attorney, with a sickly wife and several boys, she had been rather a pretty girl. But then she had worn no fuzzy fringe, nor had she dressed in blue and green and scarlet, nor had she rattled and laughed in self-important tones. These new developments had taken her husband by surprise, and he was not yet used to the change. "You needn't expect me to stop here, if you mean to be a whole week getting from the top to the bottom of the stairs!" she cried. "I've got something else to see to." "There's no need. If you'll just ask the gentleman to step inside—" "We can wait where we are. You need not trouble yourself. Perhaps we have come to the wrong door?" suggested the tall man. "I daresay we ought to have gone to the front entrance in High Street." "It don't matter. May as well stop, now you are here," said Mrs. Cragg. "He'll be down directly. He's always slow. That's his way." She had meant to go out this side to save time, but, on second thoughts, she turned back and met her husband. "Well, I hope you've been long enough," was her greeting. "It's somebody after that new house of yours; and if I was you I wouldn't have anything to do with him. He's as shabby as shabby. Got on a coat that shines like anything, and a pair of gloves that our cook wouldn't look at. And I should think his trousers was made at a slop-shop. If you let him have that house, you won't get any rent for it." "It isn't always the finest-dressed folks that pay their bills the quickest," replied Cragg, with a wisdom born of experience. "He won't. You see if I'm not right." Mrs. Cragg liked to be always in the right, and seldom admitted that she was not. Having once committed herself to this particular view of the question, she was certain not to regard the tall man in future with favourable eyes. Cragg knew this, but he said nothing. "You see!" repeated Mrs. Cragg, "I know a man that can't be depended on when I come across him. He's as poor as a church-mouse, and he wants to get a house rent-free. If you take my advice, you'll pack him off in a hurry." Cragg was not in the habit of taking a woman's advice in matters of business, though he obtained plenty of it, gratis, from his wife. Her opinion, given lavishly and unasked on all occasions, lost value from its abundance. Mrs. Cragg passed on, and Mr. Cragg finished the descent of the stairs, with the air of a man who prided himself on being never in a hurry. "Good morning. This way, please," he said, and he led the strangers to a room behind the warehouse.