"I won't take 'em," was the ungracious reply. "If I don't get my own, I won't borrow none. Brumm, he'll be looking out for his Sunday clean shirt to-morrow, and he won't get it; and that'll punish him more than anything else. There's not a man in Honey Fair as likes to go sprucer on a Sunday than Brumm." "So much the better," said Charlotte. "When men lose pride in their appearance, they are apt to lose it in their conduct." "You must always put in your word for folks, Charlotte East, let 'em be ever so bad," was Mrs. Brumm's parting salutation, as she went off and shut the door with a bang. Meanwhile Timothy Carter, Mrs. Carter's husband, had turned into his own dwelling, after leaving Robert East. The first thing to greet him was the pail of water. Mrs. Carter had completed her grate, and was dashing her water on to the floor. Timothy received it on his legs. "What's that for?" demanded Timothy, who was a meek and timid little man. "Why do you brush in so sharp, then?" cried she. "Who was to know you was a-coming?" Timothy had not "brushed in sharp;" he had gone in quietly. He stood ruefully shaking the wet from his legs, first one, then the other, and afterwards began to pick his way on tiptoe towards the fireplace. "Now, it's of no use your attempting to sit down yet," rebuked his wife, in her usual cross accents. "There ain't no room for you at the fire, and there ain't no warmth in it; it's but this blessed minute lighted. Sit yourself on that table, again the wall, and then your legs'll be in the dry." "And there I may sit for an hour, for you'll be all that time before you have finished, by the looks on't," he ventured to remonstrate. "And half another hour to the end of it," answered she. "There's Betsy, as ought to be helping, gadding out somewhere ever since she came home at seven o'clock." "You says to me, says you, 'You come home to-night, Tim, as soon as work's over, and don't go drinking!' You know you did," repeated Timothy in an injured tone. "And it's a good thing as you have come, or you'd have heard my tongue in a way you wouldn't like!" was Mrs. Carter's reply. Timothy sighed. That tongue was the two-edged sword of his life: how dreaded, none but himself could tell. He had mounted the table in obedience to orders, but he now got off again. "What are you after now?" shrilly demanded Mrs. Carter, who was on her knees, scouring the bricks. "I want my pipe and 'baccy." "You stop where you are," was the imperative answer, "and wait till I have time to get it;" and Timothy humbly sat down again.