“No, darling, if you’re going to read you must read to yourself. The gentleman opposite isn’t reading his paper aloud.” “Why isn’t he?” “Because it might worry other people and wouldn’t be good manners.” “Is that gentleman good manners?” “Of course, he has. Hush, darling, don’t go on asking silly questions.” “When I make a rude noise with my mouf I put my hand up and say ‘Pardon.’” “Of course.” “Well, that gentleman maided lots and lots of very rude noises, and he didn’t put his hand up to his mouf and say ‘pardon.’ Why didn’t he, muvver?” “Darling, please don’t go on making remarks about people. It’s not kind.” Letizia was dejected by this insinuation, and sat silent for a space. Then she cheered up: “Muvver, if that gentleman makes a rude noise again, would it be kind for me to put up my hand to my mouf and say ‘pardon’?” Nancy thought that her daughter’s present humour of critical observations augured ill for her success at Lebanon House, and she began to wish that she had left her behind in London. “Listen, darling. I don’t want you to be a horrid little girl and go on chattering when mother asks you to keep quiet. If you behave like this, your Uncle Caleb won’t like you.” “If he doesn’t like me, I won’t like him,” said Letizia confidently. Nancy shook a reproachful head. “Well, I shan’t talk to you any more. In fact, I’ve a very good mind to leave you behind in the train when we get to Brigham.” “Where would I go?” Letizia asked, perfectly undismayed by this threat. “I’m sure I don’t know where you would go.” “I would ask a porter,” Letizia suggested. “I would say, ‘Please, Mr. Porter, where shall I go to?’ and then he’d tell me, and I’d say, ‘Oh, that’s where I shall go, is it?’” Suddenly a cloud passed across the mother’s mind. It might be that to-morrow she would be travelling back through these same fields without her little girl. Ah, nothing that Letizia said could justify her in making mock threats of abandoning her in the train when in her heart was the intention of abandoning her in the house of that unknown brother-in-law. In swift contrition she picked Letizia up and kissed her. “My sweetheart,” she whispered. Rugby was left behind, Lichfield in its frosty vale, the smoky skies of Crewe and Stafford. The country outraged by man’s lust for gold writhed in monstrous contortions. About the refuse heaps of factories bands of children roamed as pariahs might, and along the squalid streets women in shawls wandered like drab and melancholy ghosts. “Brigham, Brigham,” cried the porters. On the cold and dreary platform Letizia in her scarlet hood made the people turn round to stare at her as if she were a tropical bloom or some strange bird from the sweet South. “Lebanon House?” the driver of the fly repeated in surprise. “Mr. Fuller’s, do you mean, ma’am?” And every time he whipped up the smoking horse his perplexity seemed to be writing on the grey air a note of interrogation.