Mrs Prothero read, her dear son’s letter with tears in her eyes, the sudden sight of which caused sympathetic tears to flow from the eyes of the poor work-girl, much to the surprise of Mr Prothero, who chanced to look round to see whether his coat was finished.

’Hang the ‘oomen,’ he muttered to himself, ’they can’t read a bit of a letter without blubbing.  How long will that take you to do?—­what’s your name?’

‘Gladys, if you please, sir,’ said Gladys, looking up from her work.  ’I shall have finished it directly, sir.’

‘Gladys?  Gladys what?’ asked Mr Prothero.

‘Gladys O’Grady, sir,’ was the reply whilst the mending was coming to a close.

‘Where on earth did you pick up such names as that?’

‘One was my mother’s, and the other my father’s, sir,’ said Gladys, rising and presenting the coat with a deep curtsey.

Mrs Prothero was absorbed in her letter.

‘Name o’ goodness where did your father get such a name? and where do you live?’

The girl bent her head over the coat she held in her hand, and her tears fell upon it.

’There, never mind? give me my coat.  Thank you.  Why, Lewis the tailor ’ouldn’t ‘a mended it better.  Why, girl, where did you learn tailoring?’

‘Mother taught me to mend everything, sir.’

’There then, take you that old hat and see if you can make as good a job of sewing on the brim as you done of the coat.  Mother, come you here, I want to speak to you.’

Mr Prothero left the room, and Mrs Prothero followed.

‘Who’s that girl, mother?  I never saw her before,’ were his first words in the passage, whilst pulling to the coat that he had begun to put on in the work-room.

‘Why, David, you see—­it is—­there now, don’t be angry.’

’Angry! what for?  Hasn’t she mended my coat capital, and isn’t she as modest looking a young ‘ooman as I ever saw?’

’She is very delicate, but she works night and day.  Indeed, she does more in a day than most girls in a week Owen wanted some shirts, you see—­she made that cap you admired so much, and that new gown of Netta’s; and has more than paid for—­’

‘But who the deuce is she?’

’There now, don’t be angry, David.  ’Tis that poor Irish girl that was so ill of the fever.’

’I’ll never believe she’s Irish as long as I live—­she’s too pretty and tidy and delicate and fair.  She’s no more Irish than I am, mother, and you’ve been taken in.’

‘She is Welsh on the mother’s side.  But are you very angry, David?’

’No, I don’t mind her doing a little work in an honest way like that.  I’m not such a fool.  When she has done the work send her off, that’s all.  Poor soul! she does look as if she had been dead and buried and come to life again.  Mother, you’re a good ‘ooman, and God bless you!’

Mrs Prothero looked up into her husband’s face with an expression of such love and joy as must have delighted a much harder heart than that spouse possessed.  Don’t laugh, gentle reader, at the conjugal embrace of that middle-aged pair, which seals the quarrel about the Irish girl; but believe me, there is more real sentiment in it than in most of the love-scenes you may have read about.