“Please, sir, Miss Butterworth is at the door, and would like to see you.”

Now, Miss Butterworth was the one person in all Sevenoaks who was not afraid of Robert Belcher.  She had been at the public school with him when they were children; she had known every circumstance of his history; she was not dependent on him in any way, and she carried in her head an honest and fearless tongue.  She was an itinerant tailoress, and having worked, first and last, in nearly every family in the town, she knew the circumstances of them all, and knew too well the connection of Robert Belcher with their troubles and reverses.  In Mr. Belcher’s present condition of self-complacency and somnolency, she was not a welcome visitor.  Belligerent as he had been toward his own image in the mirror, he shrank from meeting Keziah Butterworth, for he knew instinctively that she had come with some burden of complaint.

“Come in,” said Mr. Belcher to his servant, “and shut the door behind you.”

The girl came in, shut the door, and waited, leaning against it.

“Go,” said her master in a low tone, “and tell Mrs. Belcher that I am busy, and that she must choke her off.  I can’t see her to-night.  I can’t see her.”

The girl retired, and soon afterward Mrs. Belcher came, and reported that she could do nothing with Miss Butterworth—­that Miss Butterworth was determined to see him before she left the house.

“Bring her in; I’ll make short work with her.”

As soon as Mrs. Belcher retired, her husband hurried to the mirror, brushed his hair back fiercely, and then sat down to a pile of papers that he always kept conveniently upon his library table.

“Come in,” said Mr. Belcher, in his blandest tone, when Miss Butterworth was conducted to his room.

“Ah!  Keziah?” said Mr. Belcher, looking up with a smile, as if an unexpected old friend had come to him.

“My name is Butterworth, and it’s got a handle to it,’ said that bumptious lady, quickly.

“Well, but, Keziah, you know we used to—­”

“My name is Butterworth, I tell you, and it’s got a handle to it.”

“Well, Miss Butterworth—­happy to see you—­hope you are well—­take a chair.”

“Humph,” exclaimed Miss Butterworth, dropping down upon the edge of a large chair, whose back felt no pressure from her own during the interview.  The expression of Mr. Belcher’s happiness in seeing her, and his kind suggestion concerning her health, had overspread Miss Butterworth’s countenance with a derisive smile, and though she was evidently moved to tell him that he lied, she had reasons for restraining her tongue.

They formed a curious study, as they sat there together, during the first embarrassing moments.  The man had spent his life in schemes for absorbing the products of the labor of others.  He was cunning, brutal, vain, showy, and essentially vulgar, from his head to his feet, in every fiber of body and soul.  The woman had earned with her own busy hands every dollar of money she had ever possessed.  She would not have wronged a dog for her own personal advantage.  Her black eyes, lean and spirited face, her prematurely whitening locks, as they were exposed by the backward fall of her old-fashioned, quilted hood, presented a physiognomy at once piquant and prepossessing.