"You talkin’ like that and poor S’bina lying there. I’m fairly ashamed of yer. A dog’d knaw better than that. I don’t knaw ’ow she ’ad so much patience, puttin’ up wi’ you all these years. Thank ’Eaven, I’ve no need to." He understood that she was annoyed on his late wife’s account. To him it was as if Sabina had been dead a year and he marvelled that she should still exert an influence over others. "Oh, come now," he said hurriedly, "I didn’t mean to vex you, but when people’s dead and gone——" "’Twould serve yer right," cried Mrs. Tom still indignant, "if she should haunt yer." "Haunt me?" stammered Byron with a quick change of mood. "She wouldn’t do that? You don’t think she’d do that, do yer?" "You knaw best whether she should or no," and she perceived without understanding why, that this random shot had hit the target. "Well, why should she?" The man relapsed into his ordinary manner. "I don’t like that kind of talk. Take an’ come in now like a good sawl and take no more notice of’t." Though Mrs. Tom yielded, she preserved a certain stiffness of manner. The eggs were cold and leathery but she declined to fry others. "’Tis your own fault yer supper’s spoilt. S’bina was always studyin’ you but you’ll ’av no one now to wait on you like she did, I bet a crown." She looked over the supper-table to see that nothing had been forgotten. "You ’av a cup o’ cocoa at night, don’t yer?" Again that baffling glimpse of something hidden. "Cocoa?" said he. "’Twas S’bina that drinked the cocoa. _I_—I ’ate it." "Very well, then, I’ll get yer a cup o’ beer," and as she drew it from a cask in the linhay her glance rested for a moment on the high-girdled brown jug, the jug which Sabina had always used for her cocoa. Mrs. Tom regarded it thoughtfully. Many a time she had seen it standing on the stove, waiting till Sabina should be ready to carry it to her room. It was a part of the nightly ritual of locking up, undressing, sleep-wooing, a part of the old order which, with Sabina, had passed away. In spite of his bulk Byron was a moderate eater. The quality of his food was, as he said, a matter of indifference and he swallowed the leathery eggs as contentedly as if they had been worthy examples of Mrs. Tom’s skill. "I think I should like to ’av a pipe," he said as soon as his hunger was appeased. "I ’aven’t smoked much lately, ’aven’t felt like it." Crossing the room he put a hand on the high mantelshelf in search of his pipe. The restlessness of the past months had ebbed, leaving him at peace. He craved the dreamy satisfaction of tobacco. "Why, what’s this? ’Ere’s a new pipe! ’Owever did it get ’ere?" Mrs. Tom, glancing up from her work of clearing the table, saw that he held in his hand the pipe with an amber mouthpiece which she had brought from Stowe. "Why, that’s the one poor S’bina bought for yer!"