Esther tried, but her fierce and heavy temper held her back. She couldn't go to her father for reconciliation, and the matter might have ended quite differently, but suddenly, without another word, Jim put on his hat and went out to join "his chaps" who were waiting for him about the public-house, close to the cab-rank in the Vauxhall Bridge Road. The door was hardly closed behind him when the young children laughed and ran about joyously, and Jenny and Julia went over to Esther and begged her to stop. "Of course she'll stop," said Mrs. Saunders. "And now, Esther, come along and help me to make you up a bed in the parlour." XIV Esther was fast asleep next morning when Mrs. Saunders came into the parlour. Mrs. Saunders stood looking at her, and Esther turned suddenly on the sofa and said---- "What time is it, mother?" "It's gone six; but don't you get up. You're your own mistress whilst you're here; you pays for what you 'as." "I can't afford them lazy habits. There's plenty of work here, and I must help you with some of it." "Plenty of work here, that's right enough. But why should you bother, and you nearly seven months gone? I daresay you feels that 'eavy that you never care to get out of your chair. But they says that them who works up to the last 'as the easiest time in the end. Not that I've found it so." The conversation paused. Esther threw her legs over the side of the sofa, and still wrapped in the blanket, sat looking at her mother. "You can't be over-comfortable on that bit of sofa," said Mrs. Saunders. "Lor, I can manage right enough, if that was all." "You is that cast down, Esther; you mustn't give way. Things sometimes turns out better than one expects." "You never found they did, mother." "Perhaps I didn't, but that says nothing for others. We must bear up as best we can." One word led to another, and very soon Esther was telling her mother the whole tale of her misfortune--all about William, the sweepstakes, the ball at the Shoreham Gardens, the walks about the farm and hillside. "Service is no place for a girl who wants to live as we used to live when father was alive--no service that I've seen. I see that plain enough. Mistress was one of the Brethren like ourselves, and she had to put up with betting and drinking and dancing, and never a thought of the Lord. There was no standing out against it. They call you Creeping Jesus if you say your prayers, and you can't say them with a girl laughing or singing behind your back, so you think you'll say them to yourself in bed, but sleep comes sooner than you expect, and so you slips out of the habit. Then the drinking. We was brought up teetotal, but they're always pressing it upon you, and to please him I said I would drink the 'orse's 'ealth. That's how it began.... You don't know what it is, mother; you only knew God-fearing men until you married him. We aren't all good like you, mother. But I thought no harm, indeed I didn't."