"Is he?" retorted Mrs Slee, viciously dabbing down a dish of tempting bacon, with some golden eggs, beside the crisp brown loaf and yellow butter. "Is he, indeed! He's my master." Mrs Slee hurried out of the room, but came back directly after. "You've no spoons," she said, sharply; and then making a dive through her thin, shabby dress, she searched for some time for a pocket-hole, and then plunging her arm in right to the shoulder, she brought out a packet tied in a bit of calico. This being undone displayed a paper, and within this another paper was set free. Carefully folded, and fitted into one another, within this were half a dozen very small-sized, old-fashioned silver teaspoons, blackened with tarnish. "They are quite clean," grumbled Mrs Slee, giving a couple of them a rub. "They were my grandmother's, and she gave 'em to me when I was married--worse luck. I keep 'em there so as they shan't be drunk. He did swallow the sugar-tongs." "Does your husband drink, then?" said Mr Selwood, quietly. "Is there anything he don't do as he oughtn't since they turned him out of the plan?" said the woman, angrily. "There, don't you talk to me about him; it makes me wild when I don't want to be." She hurried out of the room again, shutting the door as loudly as she possibly could without it's being called a bang; and then hunger drove everything else out of the young vicar's mind, even the face of Eve Pelly, and--a minor consideration--his bruised hand. "A queer set of people indeed," he said, as he progressed with his hearty meal. "What capital bread, though. That butter's delicious. Hah!" he ejaculated, helping himself to another egg and a pinky brown piece of bacon; "if there is any fault in those eggs they are too fresh. By Sampson, I must tell Mrs Slee to secure some more of this bacon." Ten minutes later he was playing with the last cup of tea, and indulging it with more than its normal proportions of sugar and milk, for the calm feeling of satisfaction which steals over a hearty man after a meal--a man who looks upon digestion as a dictionary word, nothing more--had set in, and Murray Selwood was thinking about his new position in life. "Well, I suppose I shall get used to it--in time. There must be a few friends to be made. Hallo!" The ejaculation was caused by some one noisily entering the adjoining room with-- "Now then, what hev you got to yeat?" "Nowt." was the reply. The voices were both familiar, for in the first the vicar recognised that of the man in the red waistcoat--"My master," as Mrs Slee called him. "You've been cooking something," he continued loudly. "Yes. The parson's come, and it's his brakfast." "Brakfast at this time o' day! Oh, then, it's him as I see up at foundry wi' them Glaires." "Don't talk so loud, or he'll hear you," said Mrs Slee, sharply.