Miss Ladd’s drawing-master was in that state of nervous irritability which seeks relief in rapidity of motion. Public opinion in the neighborhood (especially public opinion among the women) had long since decided that his manners were offensive, and his temper incurably bad. The men who happened to pass him on the footpath said “Good-morning” grudgingly. The women took no notice of him--with one exception. She was young and saucy, and seeing him walking at the top of his speed on the way to the railway station, she called after him, “Don’t be in a hurry, sir! You’re in plenty of time for the London train.” To her astonishment he suddenly stopped. His reputation for rudeness was so well established that she moved away to a safe distance, before she ventured to look at him again. He took no notice of her--he seemed to be considering with himself. The frolicsome young woman had done him a service: she had suggested an idea. “Suppose I go to London?” he thought. “Why not?--the school is breaking up for the holidays--and _she_ is going away like the rest of them.” He looked round in the direction of the schoolhouse. “If I go back to wish her good-by, she will keep out of my way, and part with me at the last moment like a stranger. After my experience of women, to be in love again--in love with a girl who is young enough to be my daughter--what a fool, what a driveling, degraded fool I must be!” Hot tears rose in his eyes. He dashed them away savagely, and went on again faster than ever--resolved to pack up at once at his lodgings in the village, and to take his departure by the next train. At the point where the footpath led into the road, he came to a standstill for the second time. The cause was once more a person of the sex associated in his mind with a bitter sense of injury. On this occasion the person was only a miserable little child, crying over the fragments of a broken jug. Alban Morris looked at her with his grimly humorous smile. “So you’ve broken a jug?” he remarked. “And spilt father’s beer,” the child answered. Her frail little body shook with terror. “Mother’ll beat me when I go home,” she said. “What does mother do when you bring the jug back safe and sound?” Alban asked. “Gives me bren-butter.” “Very well. Now listen to me. Mother shall give you bread and butter again this time.” The child stared at him with the tears suspended in her eyes. He went on talking to her as seriously as ever. “You understand what I have just said to you?” “Yes, sir.” “Have you got a pocket-handkerchief?” “No, sir.” “Then dry your eyes with mine.”