Bax was a man of about sixty, immensely stout behind and in front, with a face that seemed powdered with pale, scissors-shorn whisker, and small eyes which had drowned their lustre in beer. He stood in the doorway in his shirt-sleeves smoking a pipe, and was not at all surprised when the couple passed through the gate and approached the porch. He merely pulled out his pipe, and said: "Good evening, Mr. Hardy; good evening, Miss Armstrong. Come for a bit of a sit down? Will y' 'ave chairs here? or the sitting-room's at your sarvice." "How d'ye do, Mr. Bax?" said Hardy. "Good evening, Mr. Bax," said Miss Armstrong, in a faint voice. "Take us into your sitting-room," said Hardy; and they entered the door and were in the sitting-room at once--a cosy little room, hung with portraits of Bax and his dead wife and daughter, decorated with a small mantel-glass in fly-gauze, and hospitable with a round table on one leg and three claws, the top beautified by a knitted cover. Julia sank into a little armchair. Bax was beginning to gaze at her earnestly; he knew her perfectly well, knew her father also, who frequently looked in for a drink; also he knew Hardy perfectly well, likewise his father, who attended him when he was attacked by gout. "Mr. Bax," said Hardy, putting his cap down upon the table, "we have come to occupy your house this night." "Joost been married, have yer?" asked Bax, slipping his pipe into his waistcoat pocket. "No," answered Hardy, gravely; "Miss Armstrong is leaving her home for good. If you don't guess why, I'll tell you presently." Bax looked knowing; he looked more knowing an instant later when a fine Persian kitten ran up his back and curled its tail upon his shoulder, for then two pairs of eyes were fastened upon Hardy, the kitten, being no beer drinker, gazing more steadfastly than the other. "Have you a bedroom that you can place at Miss Armstrong's disposal?" "Is there no later train?" asked Julia. "We would not take it if there were," replied Hardy. Of course Bax, having lost his wife, must consult his daughter, and when he had opened a door and shouted a little for Mary Ann there arrived a woman who looked old enough to be Bax's mother. Her face seemed to be dredged by time; the _arcus senilis_ was more defined in her than in Bax; she looked seventy years old, and was but thirty-eight. She curtseyed to the visitors, and then, after pursing her lips and knitting her brow, she replied to her father that Miss Armstrong could have the spare room over the sitting-room. "Can I have a bedroom?" said Hardy. Bax mused, looking at his daughter, and then said, "Not unless you sleeps along with me." "With you?" laughed Hardy, looking at his stomach. "How much of you lies in bed all at once? That'll do for me," said he, and he jerked his head at a wide hair-sofa.