“Seventeen.”

“No?  Do you mean to say she has been with us five years?”

“Yes.  Every bit of five years.”

“Then how old is Rachel?”

“Eleven.”

“And Billy?”

“Five—­and more.”

“My goodness, Mav,” and Dale sighed, “how time goes.”  Then he rose from his chair, stretched himself, and sighed again. “How time is going!”

XXIV

Another charwoman had now been engaged; and Mrs. Goudie, retiring on a small pension from the Dales, came to Vine-Pits only to pay her respects or now and then to appear as the least greedy and most deserving petitioner of all those who sat on the bench or stood waiting at the back door.  Coming thus for a dole of tea, she asked Norah to inform Mr. Dale that young Bates—­as he was still called—­had again been seen in the neighborhood.  As usual, he had come and gone furtively.

Dale, duly receiving the message, frowned and shook his head ominously.  He had never been able to get hold of young Bates, although Mrs. Goudie had reported several of these sinister reappearances, and probably nothing could have been gained by an interview with such a heartless scoundrel.  So long as old Bates was weak enough to give, young Bates would be cruel enough to go on taking; and from the aspect of things it appeared that the too generous father would before long be altogether denuded.  He was getting shabbier and shabbier in his apparel; his poor old face looked pinched and thin, and the talk was that he lived on starvation rations.  It all seemed horrible to Dale—­a thing that should not be permitted; and yet what could one do?

He thought about it all next day, and it was more or less occupying his mind at dusk when he sat with Norah in the office clearing up for the night.

“There, my dear, that’ll do.  You’ll only hurt your eyes.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Dale.  I can see well enough just to finish.”

Dale was sitting at the table in the window and Norah stood at his desk beside the high stool, copying rows of figures out of a huge day-book.  He turned his head and watched her for a minute or so in silence.  Her dusky black hair was like a crown over her stooping face; her left elbow and hand lay on the desk; and the moving pen in her other hand pointed straight at the right shoulder, exactly as Dale had taught her to point it when she first began to imitate his copper-plate writing.  She had been an apt pupil, and there was no mistake about the help she gave him nowadays.  At the beginning he used to pretend a little, saying that her aid lightened his labors, merely to encourage and please her.

“Now stop, lassie.  This is what Mr. Osborn terms blind man’s holiday.  Shut the book.”

“I should have liked to finish,” said Norah.

Nevertheless she obeyed him, closing the book and putting her papers in a drawer.