'Got some stones for me, Mrs. Marley?' he asked. 'I hope good ones this time. Those Winefred brought last were worthless.' 'No, Mr. Gasset, they were not,' said the girl. 'I know a stone as well as you.' 'Thomas Gasset,' said the mother, 'I come to you with a proposal. Will you take Winefred and me into your service? That is to say, let us both lodge with you. She shall collect the precious pebbles, and as she says she knows one that is good from another that is worthless, she can help polish; turn the grindstone, if you will; and I will go about the country selling them, instead of tapes and papers of pins――or with them.' 'My dear good creature,' gasped the jeweller――as this dealer in such stones as jasper and agate elected to be called――more correctly a lapidary――'the business would not maintain all three. The season here is short, and I sell in that only.' He looked out of the corners of his eyes at his wife, who was darning where she could profit by his lamp. She pursed up her lips and drew her brows together. 'The business is a starving, not a living,' said Mrs. Marley, 'because it is not pushed. I have just been in at the Red Lion――there are commercials, them travelling for some habberdash or hosiery firm――they work up the trade. It pays to employ them. You make me your traveller, I will go about with your wares to Dorchester, to Weymouth, to Exeter――wherever there be gentlefolk with loose money to spend in such things. It will pay you over and over again. If this sort of working a business can keep those commercials in the lap of luxury in Mrs. Warne's bar, drinking spirits and dining off roast goose, it will keep me who never take anything stronger than milk, and am content with a crust and dripping. Let me travel for you and look to this as my home, where Winefred is.' 'No,' said Mrs. Gasset, snapping the answer from her husband's mouth; 'no, indeed, we take none under our roof who cannot produce her marriage lines.' 'Then I will lodge elsewhere if you will take my child, Mr. Gasset. You may trust her. Your goods will be safe with me. I will render account for every stone. You will have as security what is more to me than silver or gold――my Winefred.' The man again peered out of the corners of his eyes at his wife, and again she answered for him. 'No,' she said. 'I don't doubt your honesty. You have been honest always save once. But there are reasons why it cannot be. That is final.' And she snapped her mouth, and at the same moment broke her darning-needle. Jane Marley left the shop. When her back was turned Mrs. Gasset flew at her husband. 'You'd have given way――I saw it by the way you twitched the end of your nose.' 'My dear Sarah! it was such an opportunity. The woman is right――my business――――' 'Oh! much you thought of your business. It was her great brown eyes――not your agates.' 'My dear Sarah! surely at my age――――' 'The older a man is, the more of a fool he becomes.' 'Well, well, my honey-bee, I didn't.'