A very cool, vigorous young hand, this time, that grasped Mr. Wriford's and shook it strongly. A slim, brown little thing, our Essie, eighteen perhaps, very pretty, with extraordinarily bright eyes; wearing a blue cotton dress with white spots. "Pleased to meet you," said Essie. III Such a cheerful, jolly room, the parlour. Here was a round table set out for supper, and Essie bustling in and out of what appeared to be the kitchen, giving final touches and laying a fourth place. A great number of framed texts all round the walls, with two or three religious pictures, a highly coloured portrait of Queen Victoria and another of General Booth. A bright little fire burning, with an armchair of shining American cloth on each side of it, and a sofa and chairs, similarly covered, all with antimacassars, set around the room. A bookcase near the window, and near one armchair a little table carrying an immense Bible with other Bibles and prayer-books placed upon it. Some shells on the mantelpiece in front of an immense, gilt-framed mirror, and with them a great number of cups and saucers and vases all inscribed as "A present from" the place whence they were purchased. Mr. Wriford sat on the sofa, silent, better already from the warmth and the fragrant savour from the kitchen; not less wretched though: somehow more wretched, somehow overcome and utterly consumed with that swelling feeling from his heart to his throat. Mr. Bickers sat in one of the armchairs, silent. Mrs. Bickers in the kitchen. Mrs. Bickers appears. "Now Essie, dear, I'll dish up. You jus' look after the lodger, dear. I expect the lodger will like to wash his hands. Hot water, dear, and there's his bundle." Essie comes out of the kitchen with a steaming jug in one hand and a candle in the other, puts down the candle to tuck Mr. Wriford's parcel under her arm, and then takes it up again. "This way," says Essie and leads the way through another door and up a flight of very steep and very narrow stairs. "Aren't they steep, though?" says Essie over her shoulder. "We don't half want a lift!"