’You can leave that bit out.’ ’I’m not going to. You asked for the whole truth and you’re going to get it for once in your life, besides I want that notice withdrawn, I’ve got a comfortable place.’ ’Oh,’ I said, ’I _do_ hope you are comfortable, Sam. Do you think your knee is any better? I so wish I could give you a nicer sitting-room and not in front of the house. It’s so rotten for you to see us go out for walks and not be able to come.’ Sam has such nice soft eyes. He said he was ’Much obliged, miss.’ He is always ’obliged’ for such funny things, and never about the things I would be. He’s never obliged for his wages, really seems to rather loathe them. Now I would love them, especially if they were paid punctually, which his never are. ’Well, now, miss,’ he continued, ’when the letters come, for instance, why can’t Master Ross behave like a gentleman and say,— ’"Brown, if there are any communications from his lordship, or from my uncle, Sir Jasper Fotheringham, Bart., or from Lady Amelia Leigh, you may hand them to me on a silver salver and retire." Instead of, "Sam, chuck over anything from father or Aunt Constance, and stick the bills on the mantelpiece."’ ’Oh, Sam,’ I giggled hopelessly, ’we always pray there mayn’t be one from Aunt Amelia.’ ’"_Aunt!_" There you go again,’ said Sam desperately. ’Is it _any_ good my talking to you?’ ’Well, but what about the housekeeping, Sam?’ ’Oh, that’s worse than anything, apparently. The first morning you went into the kitchen you said vaguely, "We like thick soup better than clear, and junkets when there’s any cream from Devonshire, and there are those chickens my uncle sent, I suppose they’d better be used soon." And you seemed to think you’d done the housekeeping for a week,’ said Sam severely. ’Well, but that’s what mother used——’ ’Yes, but not after old Mary died. If you want a thick soup, you must say what they’ve got to put in it.’ He got up hastily and murmured, ’Caught again,’ as the S.P. came along the passage with his tea, and as she came in and I got off the table, he said, ’Very well, madam, I’ll see to it,’ and I retired with dignity! At dinner to-night Mr Williams quite warmed up. I suppose it’s because his little wife is better. He nearly forgot to be a pallid curl paper and told us tales of the East End parish he had worked in after he returned from Ligeria. He said that some of the poor things were never washed except when they were born and buried, and never entered a church unless to get married, and they’re all so ignorant that he found one wedding party kneeling round the font. (I wish to goodness I had got the chance of kneeling round a font again; sometimes the ache for the small son is simply not endurable.) Mr Williams spoke, too, of the awful grinding poverty, and the vice, and how the housing question was responsible for so much. ’It’s all a question of money,’ he said, ’money can buy everything.’