The hot blood rushed to my face, and I sprang to my feet. "I asked Miriam before ever I knew a word about her parentage or her fortune," I began angrily. "Aye, aye," said Mary, placidly. "An' oo took thee when tha were th' only decent lookin' or decent spokken felly oo'd ivver clapt e'en on, for yo' cannot ca' yon Ephraim other t'one or t'other. But nah, yo know, oo's happen nowt to do but ma' her case known i' Manchester, an' friends an' relations, all on 'em weel to do, 'll just spring up i' dozens. Brass breeds brass, as onny fooil knows; an' it's noan likely 'at her grandmother Garside had nob'dy belongin' to her, 'at 'ud happen ax nowt better nor to tak' her bi th' hand an' do for her a seet better a worldly way o' speikin' nor even yo'r feyther, though, in course, i' a heavenly way there's no marrowing him, if aw'm to judge. Aw duzinot know ha fo'k hunt for lost kinfolk; send th' bellman raand, aw reckon. Onny road, theer th' case is, Abel, whether yo' like it or not, an' it's not to be thowt 'at like it yo' weel. It's hard on thee, lad, an' aw'm sorry for thee: but reight's reight, an' wrong's no man's reight. An' Mrs Wrigley says. "D----, Mrs. Wrigley," I began, and went as near to swearing as ever I did in my life, but checked myself in time. Mary eyed me sorrowfully. "Aw thowt yo' were yo'r feyther's son," she said. "But aw'n said mi say, an' yo' can other like it or lump it. Ger aat o' th' haase an' tak' a walk bi thissen; an' if yo' want better guidance nor owd Mary Haigh can gi'e yo', yo'r feyther's son s'ud know wheer to seek it." It will be judged that I slept ill that night, and Jim must have found me an uneasy chamber-fellow. 'Uneasy,' says the poet, 'lies the head that wears a crown.' Alas! we all wear crowns of sorts, mostly of thorns; and it isn't only the Scots thane that murders sleep. Over and over again in my midnight tossings and turnings I railed at Mrs. Wrigley and her meddling tongue. Of course the sting of the whole matter was that I knew she was in the right. My conscience smote me as I looked at things through her eyes. Mr. Garside's dying charge to me had been to find his child, if child there should be and hand to it the little store he had husbanded so jealously. Well, she was found: so far so good. But if Mr. Garside had lived and found his daughter as I had found her, what would _he_ have done? Would he not for _her_ sweet sake have sought to resume the station his birth and breeding entitled him to? And if that was what he would have done, was it not equally my duty, as standing as it were in his shoes, being indeed not only Miriam's lover, but what old "Yallow Breeches"--of whom anon--described as one standing _in loco parentis_. That was the problem that drove sleep from my couch, and with which I confronted poor Jim when I could find it in my heart to rouse him from his Well-earned slumbers.