had prompted them remained behind, there was an intimidating consciousness that the expression of such feeling would not be effective—­jokes of that sort had ceased to tickle the Milby mind.  Even Mr. Budd and Mr. Tomlinson, when they saw Mr. Tryan passing pale and worn along the street, had a secret sense that this man was somehow not that very natural and comprehensible thing, a humbug—­that, in fact, it was impossible to explain him from the stomach and pocket point of view.  Twist and stretch their theory as they might, it would not fit Mr. Tryan; and so, with that remarkable resemblance as to mental processes which may frequently be observed to exist between plain men and philosophers, they concluded that the less they said about him the better.

Among all Janet’s neighbourly pleasures, there was nothing she liked better than to take an early tea at the White House, and to stroll with Mr. Jerome round the old-fashioned garden and orchard.  There was endless matter for talk between her and the good old man, for Janet had that genuine delight in human fellowship which gives an interest to all personal details that come warm from truthful lips; and, besides, they had a common interest in good-natured plans for helping their poorer neighbours.  One great object of Mr. Jerome’s charities was, as he often said, ‘to keep industrious men an’ women off the parish.  I’d rether given ten shillin’ an’ help a man to stand on his own legs, nor pay half-a-crown to buy him a parish crutch; it’s the ruination on him if he once goes to the parish.  I’ve see’d many a time, if you help a man wi’ a present in a neeborly way, it sweetens his blood—­he thinks it kind on you; but the parish shillins turn it sour—­he niver thinks ’em enough.’  In illustration of this opinion Mr. Jerome had a large store of details about such persons as Jim Hardy, the coal-carrier, ‘as lost his hoss’. and Sally Butts, ’as hed to sell her mangle, though she was as decent a woman as need to be’; to the hearing of which details Janet seriously inclined; and you would hardly desire to see a prettier picture than the kind-faced white-haired old man telling these fragments of his simple experience as he walked, with shoulders slightly bent, among the moss-roses and espalier apple-trees, while Janet in her widow’s cap, her dark eyes bright with interest, went listening by his side, and little Lizzie, with her nankeen bonnet hanging down her back, toddled on before them.  Mrs. Jerome usually declined these lingering strolls, and often observed, ’I niver see the like to Mr. Jerome when he’s got Mrs. Dempster to talk to; it sinnifies nothin’ to him whether we’ve tea at four or at five o’clock; he’d go on till six, if you’d let him alone—­he’s like off his head.’  However, Mrs. Jerome herself could not deny that Janet was a very pretty-spoken woman:  ‘She aly’s says, she niver gets sich pikelets’ as mine nowhere; I know that very well—­other folks buy ’em at shops—­thick, unwholesome things, you might as well eat a sponge.’