Mr. Vickers rose and, approaching his offspring, inspected them with the same interest that he would have bestowed upon a wax-works.  A certain stiffness of pose combined with the glassy stare which met his gaze helped to favour the illusion.

“For once in their lives they’re respectable,” said Selina, regarding them with moist eyes.  “Soap and water they’ve always had, bless’em, but you’ve never seen’em dressed like this before.”

Before Mr. Vickers could frame a reply a squeaking which put all the others in the shade sounded from above.  It crossed the floor on hurried excursions to different parts of the room, and then, hesitating for a moment at the head of the stairs, came slowly and ponderously down until Mrs. Vickers, looking somewhat nervous, stood revealed before her expectant husband.  In scornful surprise he gazed at a blue cloth dress, a black velvet cape trimmed with bugles, and a bonnet so aggressively new that it had not yet accommodated itself to Mrs. Vickers’s style of hair-dressing.

“Go on!” he breathed.  “Go on!  Don’t mind me.  What, you—­you—­you’re not going to church?”

Mrs. Vickers glanced at the books in her hand—­also new—­and trembled.

“And why not?” demanded Selina.  “Why shouldn’t we?”

Mr. Vickers took another amazed glance round and his brow darkened.

“Where did you get the money?” he inquired.

“Saved it,” said his daughter, reddening despite herself.

“Saved it?” repeated the justly-astonished Mr. Vickers.  “Saved it?  Ah! out of my money; out of the money I toil and moil for—­out of the money that ought to be spent on food.  No wonder you’re always complaining that it ain’t enough.  I won’t ’ave it, d’ye hear?  I’ll have my rights; I’ll——­”

“Don’t make so much noise,” said his daughter, who was stooping down to ease one of Mrs. Vickers’s boots.  “You would have fours, mother, and I told you what it would be.”

“He said that I ought to wear threes by rights,” said Mrs. Vickers; “I used to.”

“And I s’pose,” said Mr. Vickers, who had been listening to these remarks with considerable impatience—­“I s’pose there’s a bran’ new suit o’ clothes, and a pair o’ boots, and ’arf-a-dozen shirts, and a new hat hid upstairs for me?”

“Yes, they’re hid all right,” retorted the dutiful Miss Vickers.  “You go upstairs and amuse yourself looking for’em.  Go and have a game of ’hot boiled beans’ all by yourself.”

“Why, you must have been stinting me for years,” continued Mr. Vickers, examining the various costumes in detail.  “This is what comes o’ keeping quiet and trusting you—­not but what I’ve ’ad my suspicions.  My own kids taking the bread out o’ my mouth and buying boots with it; my own wife going about in a bonnet that’s took me weeks and weeks to earn.”

[Illustration:"‘Why, you must have been stinting me for years,’ continued Mr. Vickers.”]