‘Why, you’re all a-blowin’ and a-growin’ this morning, Peckover,’ was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair.  ’I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain’t natural.  Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?’

‘Course I dare,’ replied Clem, tossing her head.  ’Don’t be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.’

’Forward?  Not I. I’m behind time if anything.  I hope I haven’t kept you from church.’

He chuckled at his double joke.  Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively.

‘Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?’ inquired Mrs. Peckover.

’Going to give me eggs, are you?  Well, I’ve no objection, I assure you.  And I think I’ll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover.  But, I say, you mustn’t be running up too big a bill.  The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain’t very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her.  ’I can’t say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain’t one to make a row about bygones, an’ as you say you’ll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won’t refuse to trust you once more.’

Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender.  He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem.  The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it.  When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction.  A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste.

‘I’ve got a couple more eggs, if you’d like them doin’,’ said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands.

‘I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,’ returned Mr. Snowdon.

As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind.  He was, in fact, musing upon a question which be found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way.  ‘What’s the meaning of all this?’ he asked himself, and not for the first time.  ’What makes them treat me in this fashion?  A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I’d run down to my last penny, and I didn’t know where to find a night’s lodging.  I’d got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome