He was conquered. She nodded kindly and entered the doorway. “Guidbye, Jessie Mary,” he murmured, and turned away. There were no other customers in the shop. Jessie Mary took a seat at the counter. The young man, stroking his moustache, gave her a good-evening tenderly. “I’m to get to the dance,” she said, solemnly. The young man’s hand fell to his side. “Wi’ me?” he cried, very eagerly. “I ha’ena made up ma mind yet, Peter. I want a pair o’ kippers――the biggest ye’ve got.” CHAPTER THREE The outside of the shop had been painted but recently. Above door and window were blazoned in large gilt letters the words: STATIONERY AND FANCY GOODS. Just over the doorway was very modestly printed in white the name of the proprietor: M. TOD. What the _M_ stood for nobody knew (or cared) unless, perhaps, the person so designated; and it is almost conceivable that she had forgotten, considering that for five and thirty years she had never heard herself addressed save as Miss Tod. For five and thirty years M. Tod had kept her shop without assistance. For five and thirty years she had lived in the shop and its back room, rarely going out of doors except to church on Sunday mornings. The grocer along the way had a standing order: practically all the necessaries of life, as M. Tod understood them, could be supplied from a grocer’s shop. A time had been when M. Tod saved money; but the last ten years had witnessed a steady shrinking of custom, a dwindling in hopes for a peaceful, comfortable old age, a shrinking and dwindling in M. Tod herself. A day came when a friendly customer and gossip was startled to behold M. Tod suddenly flop to the floor behind the counter. A doctor, hastily summoned, brought her back to a consciousness of her drab existence and dingy shop. She was soon ready to go on with both as though nothing had happened. The doctor, however, warned her quite frankly that if she did not take proper nourishment, moderate exercise and abundance of fresh air, she would speedily find herself beyond need of these things. M. Tod did not want to die, and since she never laughed at anything she could not laugh at the doctor. To some of us life is like a cup of bitter physic with a lump of sugar at the bottom, but no spoon to stir it up with; life, therefore, must be sweet――sooner or later.