No word is spoken. Nelly is lifted into a chair by her mother, and Mr. Conway seats himself before the dish and fills a glass from the jug of ale, taking care--a true connoisseur in such matters--to let the liquor fall from a height, to secure a froth, into which he dips his mouth and nose. The slattern leaves the room; and Dolly cuts up some meat and bread for the little one, with a whisper in her ear to say grace. “Did you get the money, Robert?” she asks presently, eating little herself, and noticing how Robert bribes his appetite with sups of ale. “No. Davis was out.” “What shall we do? I have only five and threepence left, and this meat is not paid for.” Pence make a sordid enumeration; but we talk of pence, reader, when we have only pence to spend. “We must sell something, that’s all,” says Mr. Conway, with a kind of defiant recklessness in his manner. She gives him a quick glance, looks at her child, and then closes the knife and fork upon her plate. He does not notice that she has eaten about as much as would serve a bird for a meal; neither does he appear to remark that she drinks water. _He_, at all events, keeps the beer-jug at his elbow, from which, in a very short time, he pours out the last glass. The child alone continues eating. “_I_ don’t know what’s to be done!” he exclaims in a voice of suppressed anger, pushing his chair from the table. “The people have dropped me for that French quack, in Mornington Street. I saw three carriages at his door when I passed just now. I ought never to have left the old shop. I did well there.” “You would do well here if you gave yourself a chance,” says Dolly. “The lady who called yesterday evening came again this morning. Martha told me she looked annoyed when she heard you were out. She will go to some one else, I suppose, now.” “Let her!” he calls out. “How am I to know that people are coming to me after dark? Week after week passes, and they don’t come, and--am I going to hang about here a whole night, in the hope of a patient turning up? Why didn’t she leave word at what hour she meant to call to-day? I went out to collect some money, and you know it, though I can guess what is in your thoughts. But it’s false--there’s my hand on it!” He let his hand fall heavily on the table, and stared at his wife. She slightly turned from him, and looked through the window. He left the table and began to pace the room. The child, having emptied her plate and wanting something to play with, had taken the shilling Holdsworth had given her from her pocket, and tried to make it spin on the cloth. “What’s that Nelly has got there?” said Mr. Conway. “A shilling,” answered Dolly. “Did you give it her?... Look at our dinner!... You would pamper that child if we were starving. Talk to me of your five and threepence when you can give your baby a shilling!” “I did not give it to her.” “Who then?” “A gentleman.” “What gentleman?” “A gentleman lodging at Mrs. Parrot’s.”