Mrs. Bickers glances at Mr. Wriford and says reprovingly: "Oh, Essie!" But there is no help for it and no avoiding its infection. Essie puts back her head and goes into a ring of the brightest possible laughter, and Mrs. Bickers laughs at her, and Mr. Bickers laughs at her, and even Mr. Wriford smiles; and thereafter Essie chatters without ceasing to her parents on an extraordinary variety of topics connected with what she has done or seen during the day, in every one of which she finds subject for amusement and many times declares of whatever it may be: "Oh, aren't they funny, though! Let's have a laugh!" Mr. Wriford smiles when she laughs--impossible to avoid it. Otherwise he contributes nothing to the chatter. This strange, this kind and happy and generous ending to his day, acts upon him only in increasing sensation of that upward swelling from his heart to his throat that forbids him speech. He has the feeling that if he talks his voice will break in tears--of weakness, of wretchedness: nay, of worse than these--of their very apotheosis. There is happiness here. There is here, among these three, that which he is seeking, seeking and cannot find. They have found it: what is it then? It is all about them--shining in their faces, singing in their words. He is not of it. He is outside it. They are on the heights; he in the depths, the depths! Let him not speak, let him not speak! If he speaks he must sob and cry, get to his feet, while wondering they look at him, and stare at them, and break from them and go. If he so betrays himself he must cry at them: "What have you found? Why are you happy? This kills me, kills me, to sit here and watch you. Don't touch me. None of you touch me. Let me go. Just let me go." They seem to see his plight. They smile encouragingly at him to draw him into their talk; Mr. Bickers, when the women are clearing away, offers him a new clay pipe and the tobacco jar. But they seem to understand. They accept without comment or offence the negation of these advances which he gives only by shaking his head as they are made. "Well, that's done!" says Essie, coming down from the lodger's room after the supper has been cleared away. "Bed made and everything nice and ready. One of the castors of the bed is shaky, Dad. You'll have to see to it in the morning. I can't think how I never noticed it till now. Oh, those lodgers! They're fair cautions!" Mrs. Bickers smiles at Mr. Wriford. "Well, I expect you'd like to go straight to bed, wouldn't you now?" Painful this distrust of his voice. He rises and manages: "Yes, I would." "You'll be ever so much better in the morning after a good sleep. What about--" and Mrs. Bickers looks at her husband. "It's our custom," says Mr. Bickers in his deep voice, "all to read a piece from the Bible before we go to bed--all that sleep under this roof. We'll do it now so you can get along. Essie, dear."