At first Giles rather enjoyed it, but presently the feeling of loneliness and strangeness, against which he had been struggling all day, returned with redoubled force; and when he was finally ushered into his clean tidy little room, and Mrs. Tapper, after calling his attention to the various preparations she had made for his comfort, left him to himself, he sat down on the side of the bed and groaned aloud.

[Illustration:  GILES IN LUCK “Waited upon him at tea time as though he had been a gentleman born”]

They would just be about “turnin’ in” at the Union, and Jim, laying himself down on the pallet next to his, would be making the time-honoured joke about the absence of spring-mattresses and feather-beds, with which he was usually wont to regale the other inmates at this hour.  As Giles turned down the spotless lavender-scented sheets he thought longingly of the workhouse twill.

A week later Giles was permitted to visit his former friends, laden with such a store of buns and baccy as would have ensured his welcome, even had not most of his cronies been genuinely glad to see him.

“Dear heart alive!” cried Jim, receiving his modicum of twist with a delighted chuckle, “these be new times, these be.  Who’d ever ha’ thought o’ Giles Maine walkin’ in like a lard wi’ presents for us all?”

But Giles was looking round with a foolish wavering sort of smile.

“It’d seem real homely in here,” he remarked.  “Ah! it do fur sure.  There be the papers as us’al, I see—­I do miss papers awful out yonder.”

“Why, to be sure,” cried one of the younger men, “you can buy ’em for yourself now.  I’m blowed if I wouldn’t have all the papers as comes out if I was you.”

“I did go to a shop onest,” said the old man, “and I did ax, but they didn’t seem able to gi’ me the right ’uns.  ‘I want pictur’s o’ the snow and folks huntin’ and that,’ says I.  ‘Not this time o’ year,’ says the young lady; ‘them’s in Christmas numbers.’  ’That’s what I’ve bin used to,’ says I.  ’Well, we can order ’em for you,’ says she, but I couldn’t mind the names.  I knowed one did begin ‘G—­r—­a—­p—­’ so I did ax if they had one about ‘Grape—­summat,’ and they did give I the Gardener—­ah, that was what they did call it; but there weren’t no pictur’s in it at all, only flowers and mowing machines, and sich-like.”

“Why, ye mean the Graphic” cried some one with a laugh; “no wonder the maid couldn’t make out what you was a-drivin’ at.”

But Giles did not heed him; he was gazing hungrily at the greasy pack of cards which lay on the deal table.

“It d’ seem a martal sight of time since I’ve had a game,” he exclaimed.  “Light up, Jim; you and me ’ull jist have time for one afore tea.”

When the bell rang for this last-named meal Giles rose with the rest, and was preparing to walk with them down the well-known stairs, when he was astonished by receiving an invitation to tea with no less a person than the matron herself.