’Goodbye, ou’d wench!  We’ve parted company at last, we have!  But thou’st been a blessin’ to thy father ever sin’ thou wert born.  Bless thy white lips, lass,—­they’ve a smile on ’em now! and I’m glad to see it once again, though I’m lone and forlorn for evermore.’

He stooped down and fondly kissed his daughter; covered up her face, and turned to follow Margaret.  She had hastily gone down stairs to tell Mary of the arrangement; to say it was the only way she could think of to keep him from the gin-palace; to urge Mary to come too, for her heart smote her at the idea of leaving the poor affectionate girl alone.  But Mary had friends among the neighbours, she said, who would come in and sit a bit with her, it was all right; but father—­

He was there by them as she would have spoken more.  He had shaken off his emotion, as if he was ashamed of having ever given way to it; and had even o’erleaped himself so much that he assumed a sort of bitter mirth, like the crackling of thorns under a pot.

‘I’m going to take my tea wi’ her father, I am!’

But he slouched his cap low down over his brow as he went out into the street, and looked neither to the right nor to the left, while he tramped along by Margaret’s side; he feared being upset by the words, still more the looks, of sympathising neighbours.  So he and Margaret walked in silence.

As he got near the street in which he knew she lived, he looked down at his clothes, his hands, and shoes.

‘I should m’appen ha’ cleaned mysel’, first?’

It certainly would have been desirable, but Margaret assured him he should be allowed to go into the yard, and have soap and towel provided; she could not let him slip out of her hands just then.

While he followed the house-servant along the passage, and through the kitchen, stepping cautiously on every dark mark in the pattern of the oil-cloth, in order to conceal his dirty foot-prints, Margaret ran upstairs.  She met Dixon on the landing.

‘How is mamma?—­where is papa?’

Missus was tired, and gone into her own room.  She had wanted to go to bed, but Dixon had persuaded her to lie down on the sofa, and have her tea brought to her there; it would be better than getting restless by being too long in bed.

So far, so good.  But where was Mr. Hale?  In the drawing-room.  Margaret went in half breathless with the hurried story she had to tell.  Of course, she told it incompletely; and her father was rather ‘taken aback’ by the idea of the drunken weaver awaiting him in his quiet study, with whom he was expected to drink tea, and on whose behalf Margaret was anxiously pleading.  The meek, kind-hearted Mr. Hale would have readily tried to console him in his grief, but, unluckily, the point Margaret dwelt upon most forcibly was the fact of his having been drinking, and her having brought him home with her as a last expedient to keep him from the gin-shop.  One little event had come out of another so naturally that Margaret was hardly conscious of what she had done, till she saw the slight look of repugnance on her father’s face.