“You speaks fair, sir. I don’t say but what you speaks fair. Granting life and health, it’s a fine thing for her, and a honour for us. And taking the other side of the question, as I’m bound to take it, I wouldn’t say but the insurance makes a difference. A woman with a thousand pounds and a babby is no worse off than if she hadn’t neither--and Missis is better nor Miss in the way of setting up a school or such like. I may say, Mr Peveril, as the insurance makes a great difference. A thousand pound ain’t much for a dependence; and if there was a lot of little uns--but to be sure, in them matters you must go on providence to a certain extent. I’ll think it over, sir--and I don’t see as I’ve any call to make objections, if her and you’s made up your minds.” Then there was a step towards the door, and then Spicer came to a stand-still once more. “First thing,” he said, “Mr Peveril, is the insurance. You won’t put it off, sir? I’ve known them as meant it every day o’ their lives, and never did it when all was done; and died and left their families without e’er a----” “It shall be done at once,” said my father peremptorily, and almost angrily; and then there was a begging of pardon, and a scraping and shuffling, and Spicer went away. I saw him go out, putting his hat on as he shut the door. I never liked Spicer--of course he was one of the parishioners, and papa could not refuse his advice to him or to any one; but I made a face at him as he went away. I felt quite sure he was the sort of man one sometimes reads of in the newspapers, who put sand in the sugar, and sell bad tea to the poor people, and have light weights. This was in my mind along with a vague, faint curiosity as to what he had been talking about, when to my surprise papa came into the parlour. He came in quickly, with a flush on his face, and the most uneasy, uncomfortable look I ever saw a man have. Was he ashamed of something?--ashamed! he--papa! “I suppose you have heard all that Spicer has been saying, Mary,” he said to me, quite abruptly. He gave me one strange look, and then turned away, and gazed at the Beautiful gate of the Temple which hung over the mantelpiece as if he had never seen it before. “Yes,” I said; and then it suddenly flashed upon me that Spicer’s talk had not been exactly of a kind to be overheard by a girl, and that this was why poor papa looked so embarrassed and uncomfortable. He felt that it was not proper for me. “I heard a little of it,” I said instantly, “but I never listen, you know, papa, and I don’t know in the least what he was talking about.” Poor papa! how delicate he was; how shocked I should have heard anything I ought not to know--though it was not so dreadful after all, for of course everybody knows that when people are married they have babies. But he did not like to look me in the face; he kept his back to me, and gazed at the twisted pillars. “Mary,” he said, “I have a little explanation to make to you.”