They called him "Percival" now, at his desire. To Japhra he was still sometimes Little Master; to Ima never. But in Ima's ways and in her speech he noticed altogether a change in these days. The "Thou" and "Thee" and "Thine" of her former habit were gone: she never appeared now with naked feet, but always neatly hosed and shod. Gentle in her movements too, and seemly in her dress, Percival noticed, and he came to find her strange--a thing apart--in her rough surroundings; strange to them and remote from them when she sat plying her needle, attending to his hungry wants and Japhra's, or mothering some baby from a neighbour's van. He came to think her--contrasted thus with all the sights and sounds about her--the gentlest creature that could be; her voice wonderfully soft, her touch most kind when she dressed a bruise or nursed him, as once when he lay two days sick. She mended his clothes; made some shirts for him; passed all his things through her hands before he might wear them; and never permitted him clothes soiled, or lacking buttons, or wanting the needle. He was leaving the van once to go into the town against which they were pitched. She called him back. The scarf he wore was soiled, she said, and she came to him with a clean one. He laughed at her: "It's absolutely good enough." "No, soiled," she said, and took it from his neck and placed the other. He playfully prevented her fingers. "I'm like a child with a strict nurse--the way you look after me." She replied, smiling but serious: "It is not for you to get into rough ways." "They're good enough for me." She shook her head. "You are not always for such." CHAPTER XII LETTERS OF RECALL I The first winter of this life Percival spent with Japhra in the van; the second took him, for the first time since he had broken away, back to "Post Offic." Ima left them, when the circus broke up in that first October, to go to her doctor friend in Norfolk, there to continue the education she had imposed upon herself. Egbert Hunt took her place, and the three started to tour the country till Spring and the reassembly of Maddox's should be round again. But winter on the road proved inclement to Mr. Hunt's nature. A week of frost in early December that had them three days snow-bound and on pinching short commons decided him for less arduous ways of life. He left them for London, his pockets well enough lined by his season's apprenticeship to old One Eye; they had news of him once as a socialist open air speaker in company with some organisation of malcontents of his kidney; once as prominent in an "unemployed" disturbance and in prison for seven days as the price of his activities. "He will know gaol a longer term ere he has done," was Japhra's comment. "A weak, bad streak in him." Percival laughed. "Poor old Hunt. More bitter than ever against 'tyrangs' now, Japhra. He's been shaping that way since I first knew him--often made me laugh with his outbursts."