"Two and five and seving, miss. I’m a long way the eldest in the fambly. There’s three died between me and Gladys. Father, ’e died eighteen months back, too." "Your mother has had a lot of trouble, Sarah." "Yes, miss, and she’s mostly ailing." "Would she like some cough medicine, do you think? You see I’ve got some in a bottle upstairs. I didn’t use it all." "Thank you, miss. She takes in sewing when she’s able, but they pay that bad! Threepence for a blarse! Did you ever, now?" The Atom fidgeted uncomfortably. "I don’t _quite_ know what a blarse is, Sarah, not _quite_, you see." "Why, a bodice as don’t fit, miss, just ’angs loose, and you pull it in round the waist with a belt or somethink." "Oh!" said the Atom, recognising "blouse" now, but too polite to explain. "No," pursued Sarah, "_I’m_ the worker of the fambly!" The Atom eyed her gravely. "You’re not _very_ big and strong, are you?" she queried doubtfully. "Oh, there’s a lot of work in me, miss, more’n you’d think. I can go on and on, you see. Why," proudly, "lots o’ times when my back’s just aching all over and my legs and feet too, I can work just as well as _hever_!" "That’s spunk, Sarah," said Denis’s voice round the door. "Oh, sir! Oh, Mr. Denis!" Sarah, in her confusion, let fall a plate. "Oh!" she cried, "four pieces! Oh!" She wrung her hands. Denis laughed. "My fault, Sarah; put it down to me." But the poor little maid-of-all-work had no smile left in her; her sharp little face was puckered and drawn into ludicrous lines of woe; tears stood in her pale eyes. "’Alf a crown at least!" she moaned beneath her breath. "I’d never match it under!" Denis glanced sharply at her. "What do you mean? You talk as if you will have to pay for it!" "So I do, sir! Ten pounds—washing done out—pay your own breakages—no beer—no followers," she rattled off glibly. "Do you mean Aunt Kezia makes you pay for everythin’ you break?" interposed the Atom. "Yes, miss!" There was scorn in Denis’s eye; he drew a half crown from his pocket. "I broke it, Sarah," he said gently. "Would you mind getting the new one for me? You’d bargain better than I should. Come on, Atom, everyone’s asking for you." Sheila Pat held back. "Is the goody-goo up there, too?" "The what?" "The little lame boy." "No; only his mother. Hurry up!" They left Sarah half weeping over his magnificent kindness. Denis little knew how from that moment he was a young god—a prince in a fairy tale—a hero—to the romantic Sarah. Up in the drawing-room a stiff little party sat nursing empty cups. In vain Mrs. Barclay tried to unstiffen it. Her eyes met Nell’s, and a gleam of amusement shone in them before she discreetly veiled them beneath decorous lids.