He ran down to the street door and opened it before she could knock.  The colour on her cheeks deepened at the sight of him, but now that she was near he saw her eyes were swollen with crying.

“Why do you go out without gloves, Mary Ann?” he inquired sternly.  “Remember you’re a lady now.”

She started and looked down at his boots, then up at his face.

“Oh, yes, I found them, Mary Ann.  A nice graceful way of returning me my presents, Mary Ann.  You might at least have waited till Christmas.  Then I should have thought Santa Claus sent them.”

“Please, sir, I thought it was the surest way for me to send them back.”

“But what made you send them back at all?”

Mary Ann’s lip quivered, her eyes were cast down.  “Oh—­Mr. Lancelot—­you know,” she faltered.

“But I don’t know,” he said sharply.

“Please let me go downstairs, Mr. Lancelot.  Missus must have heard me come in.”

“You shan’t go downstairs till you’ve told me what’s come over you.  Come upstairs to my room.”

“Yessir.”

She followed him obediently.  He turned round brusquely, “Here, give me your parcels.”  And almost snatching them from her, he carried them upstairs and deposited them on his table on top of the comic opera.

“Now, then, sit down.  You can take off your hat and jacket.”

“Yessir.”

He helped her to do so.

“Now, Mary Ann, why did you return me those gloves?”

“Please, sir, I remember in our village when—­when”—­she felt a diffidence in putting the situation into words and wound up quickly, “something told me I ought to.”

“I don’t understand you,” he grumbled, comprehending only too well.  “But why couldn’t you come in and give them to me instead of behaving in that ridiculous way?”

“I didn’t want to see you again,” she faltered.

He saw her eyes were welling over with tears.

“You were crying again last night,” he said sharply.

“Yessir.”

“But what did you have to cry about now?  Aren’t you the luckiest girl in the world?”

“Yessir.”

As she spoke a flood of sunlight poured suddenly into the room; the sun had broken through the clouds, the worn dollar had become a dazzling gold-piece.  The canary stirred in its cage.

“Then what were you crying about?”

“I didn’t want to be lucky.”

“You silly girl—­I have no patience with you.  And why didn’t you want to see me again?”

“Please, Mr. Lancelot, I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

“Whatever put that into your head?”

“I knew it, sir,” said Mary Ann, firmly.  “It came to me when I was crying.  I was thinking of all sorts of things—­of my mother and our Sally, and the old pig that used to get so savage, and about the way the organ used to play in church, and then all at once somehow I knew it would be best for me to do what you told me—­to buy my dress and go back with the vicar, and be a good girl, and not bother you, because you were so good to me, and it was wrong for me to worry you and make you miserable.”