Jack looked at him, laughed mirthlessly, and continued: “An’ we said we’d buy her birds. So we got hold of one goose apiece—an’ they took some holding, I can tell you—and off we set round the fair, Billy leading with the girl. The bloomin’ geese squawked an’ pecked. Laugh—I thought I should a’ died. Well, then we wanted the girl to have her birds back—and then she fired up. She got some other chaps on her side, and there was a proper old row. The girl went tooth and nail for Will there—she was dead set against him. She gave him a black eye, by gum, and we went at it, I can tell you. It was a free fight, a beauty, an’ we got run in. I don’t know what became of the girl.” Lois surveyed the two men. There was no glimmer of a smile on her face, though the maid behind her was sniggering. Will was very bitter. He glanced at his sweetheart and at the ruined factory. “How’s dad taken it?” he asked, in a biting, almost humble tone. “I don’t know,” she replied coldly. “Father’s in an awful way. I believe everybody thinks you set the place on fire.” Lois drew herself up. She had delivered her blow. She drew herself up in cold condemnation and for a moment enjoyed her complete revenge. He was despicable, abject in his dishevelled, disfigured, unwashed condition. “Aye, well, they made a mistake for once,” he replied, with a curl of the lip. Curiously enough, they walked side by side as if they belonged to each other. She was his conscience-keeper. She was far from forgiving him, but she was still farther from letting him go. And he walked at her side like a boy who had to be punished before he can be exonerated. He submitted. But there was a genuine bitter contempt in the curl of his lip. The White Stocking I “I’m getting up, Teddilinks,” said Mrs Whiston, and she sprang out of bed briskly. “What the Hanover’s got you?” asked Whiston. “Nothing. Can’t I get up?” she replied animatedly. It was about seven o’clock, scarcely light yet in the cold bedroom. Whiston lay still and looked at his wife. She was a pretty little thing, with her fleecy, short black hair all tousled. He watched her as she dressed quickly, flicking her small, delightful limbs, throwing her clothes about her. Her slovenliness and untidiness did not trouble him. When she picked up the edge of her petticoat, ripped off a torn string of white lace, and flung it on the dressing-table, her careless abandon made his spirit glow. She stood before the mirror and roughly scrambled together her profuse little mane of hair. He watched the quickness and softness of her young shoulders, calmly, like a husband, and appreciatively. “Rise up,” she cried, turning to him with a quick wave of her arm—“and shine forth.”