Mrs. Butterfield was not at all the same woman with this visitor that she was with strangers.  For one thing, he brought back to her the memory of days when she had possessed a home of her own, and had not yet been soured by ill-hap; then again, Bower belonged to her own class, for all his money saved up and his pomposities of manner.  There is a freemasonry between the members of the pure-blooded proletariat; they are ever ready in recognition of each other, and their suspicion of all above them, whether by rank or by nature, is a sense of the utmost keenness.  Mrs. Butterfield varied somewhat from the type, inasmuch as she did not care to cringe before her superiors; but that was an accident; in essentials of feeling she and Bower were at one.

The table was half covered with a dirty cloth, on which stood a loaf of bread (plateless), a small dish ready to receive the fry, and a jug of beer.  In the midst of the newly painted and papered room, which seemed ready to receive furniture of a more elegant kind than that of working-class homes, these things had an incongruity.

‘And how does the world use you, Mrs. Butterfield, ma’am?’ Bower asked, as he settled his bulky body on the small chair.

‘I earn my bed and my victuals, Mr. Bower,’ was the reply, as the old woman stirred her hissing mess with a fork.

‘And a thing to be proud of at your age, ma’am.’

From such friendly dialogue, Bower gradually turned the talk to Egremont, of whom he spoke at first as a respected intimate.  Observation of his collocutor led him shortly to alter his tone a little.  When he had heard that books were already arriving, he remarked: 

’That’s as much as to say that you’ll soon be turned out, Mrs. Butterfield.  Well, I call it hard at your age, ma’am.  Now if Egremont had acted like a gentleman and had offered me to be librarian, you’d still have kept your place here.  I don’t want to say disagreeable things, but if ever there was a mean and indecent action, it was when he passed over me and gave the place to a stranger.  Why, Mrs. Butterfield, he has to thank me for everything!  But for me he’d never have had a soul to hear his lectures.  Well, well, it don’t matter.  And what do you think o’ the young girl as is coming to keep house here after you?’

Mrs. Butterfield was turning out her supper into the dish.  She gave him a peculiar look.

‘When’s she goin’ to be wed?’ was her question in reply.

‘Next Monday.’

‘And does the man as is goin’ to marry her know as she comes here to meet this young gent?’

’She comes to meet him? Does she, now?  Tut—­tut—­tut!  But we needn’t think harm, Mrs. Butterfield—­though you can tell from her face she’ll need a good deal of looking after.  And does she come regular, now?’