“I never ’eard as she had no other, Mrs. Neave,” answered the first speaker half crossly, for she was not pleased that the grocer should give more attention to business than to her news; “and I s’pose its ’cause he’s the only one that she see’d fit to bring ’im up above ’is station.” The lamp lit up a thin, pinched face that had once been pretty with that frail, trivial prettiness that seems so strangely ill-fitted for the hard life of daily labour, where it is nevertheless so common. Mrs. Cave drew her ill-fitting little black jacket around her with an irritability of gesture that told in itself how perpetual struggles and over-fatigue had wrought on her. She had had no chance of bringing up any one of _her_ seven boys above his station, for laundry work only brought in a fair pittance in the summer time, when the place was full of visitors, and Widow Collins had the monopoly of the all-the-year-round families. “Ah, it’s a sad mistake to bring ’em up above their stations,” said Mrs. Neave piously, as she gathered up her purchases. “We’re sure to be punished for it in the long run, as Mrs. Collins is bound to be one o’ these days.” Mrs. Neave, being a plumber’s wife, considered herself just a cut above laundresses, and patronized them accordingly. “Ah, how’s that?” asked Mr. Barfield, quite interested now, though he ran busily round to the other side of the shop at the same time to fetch a skein of yarn from his haberdashery counter for Mrs. Cave; “I thought the lad was doin’ well, though to be sure pride is sure to ’ave a fall.” As the prop and stay of the Dissenting Chapel round the corner, Mr. Barfield often felt it his duty to add a pinch of righteousness to his customers’ purchases to make up the weight, and Mrs. Neave, being the wife of a fellow-warden, required special attention in this particular. But Mrs. Cave tossed her head; though she was no warden’s wife she needed no one to tell her how old Mrs. Collins was being punished, for, secretive as was that absent lady, the little laundress would have wormed the heart out of a stone. Manners, however, forbade that she should take the word out of a neighbour’s mouth, so she held her peace, though it was pain and grief to her, and let the plumber’s wife take up the tale again. “Well, the lad have married a woman with money, to be sure,” continued that lady, sadly, almost as though she were grieved to have to allow the fact, "but they do say"—and from the tone of the voice it was to be supposed that Mrs. Neave knew of circumstances that would have mitigated the joys of that match, but she was not permitted to make them known. The grocer himself interrupted her. “So I did ’ear,” he said quickly, almost betraying a certain satisfaction of his own at being able to add his mite to the gossip, “in the fish-trade.”