Everything was very still, the only sounds being the dull wooden tick of the Dutch clock, and the drowsy chirp of an asthmatic cricket, which seemed to have wedded itself somewhere in a crack behind the grate, and to be bemoaning its inability to get out; while the clock ticked hoarsely, as if its life were a burden, and it were heartily sick of having that existence renewed by a nightly pulling up of the two black iron sausages that hung some distance below its sallow face. Suddenly Thisbe walked sharply to the fire, seized the poker, and cleared the bottom bar. This done she replaced the poker, and planted one foot upon the fender to warm, and one hand upon the mantel-piece with so much inadvertence that she knocked down the tinder-box, and had to pick the flint and steel from out of the ashes with the brightly polished tongs. "I don't know what's come to me," she said sharply, as soon as the tinder-box was replaced. "Think of her holding fast to him all these years, and training up my bairn to believe in him as if he was a noble martyr! My word, it's a curious thing for a woman to be taken like that with a man, and no matter what he does, to be always believing him!" Thisbe pursed up her lips, and twitched her toes up and down as they rested upon the fender, while she directed her conversation at the golden caverns of the fire. "They say Gorringe the tailor used to beat his wife, but that woman always looked happy, and I've seen her smile on him as if there wasn't such another man in the world." Just then the clock gave such a wheeze that Thisbe started and stared at it. "Quite makes me nervous," she said, turning back to the fire. "What with the thinking and worry, and her keeping always in the same mind-- oh, my!" She took her hand from the mantel-piece to clap it upon its fellow as a sudden thought struck her, which made her look aghast. "If he did!" she said after a pause. "And yet she expects it some day. Oh, dear me! oh, dear me! what weak, foolish, trusting things women are! They take a fancy to a man, and then because you don't believe in him, too, it's hoity-toity and never forgive me. Well, poor soul! perhaps it's all for the best. It may comfort her in her troubles. I wonder what Tom Porter looks like now," she said suddenly, and then looked sharply and guiltily round to see if her words had been heard. "I declare I ought to be ashamed of myself," she said, and rushing at some work, she plumped herself down and began to stitch with all her might. In the little parlour all was very quiet, save the occasional footstep in the street. The blind was not drawn down, and the faint light from outside mingled with the glow from the fire, which threw up the face of Julia Hallam, where she sat dreamily gazing at the embers, against the dark transparency, giving her the look of a painting by one of the Italian masters of the past.