Another woman there was who had begun to exercise influence of an indefinable kind on the rugged fellow, a woman whom he saw a good deal of; and to whom he had grown accustomed to look for a good deal of help.  This was Miss Totty Nancarrow.  Totty was no slight help with little Nelly, and even with Jack.  For the former she ceased to be ‘Miss Nanco,’ and became ‘Totty’ simply; to Jack she was a most estimable acquaintance, who never grudged flattering wonder at his school achievements, even though they involved no more than a mastery of compound multiplication, and occasionally he felt a wish that some one of his schoolfellows would call Miss Nancarrow names, that he might punch the rascal’s head.  But in the father’s mind there was an obstacle to complete appreciation.  Totty was a Roman Catholic.  She often went to St. George’s Cathedral, in Southwark, and even for the purpose of confession.  When this fact was strongly before Bunce’s consciousness, he was inclined to scorn Totty and to feel an uneasiness about her associating with his children.  Somehow, the scorn and the mistrust would not hold out in Totty’s presence.  He found himself taking more pains to be polite to her than to any other person.  When she had had Nelly in her room, and brought the child to him on his coming home, he invented excuses to get her to talk for a few moments.  Unfortunately, Totty appeared little disposed to talk.

Luke Ackroyd was not infrequently in Bunce’s room.  These two discussed religion and politics together, and their remarks on these subjects lacked neither vigour nor perspicuity.  Ye gods! how they went to the root of things!  Ackroyd had persevered in his pronounced Antinomianism; he did not take life as ‘hard’ as his companion, and consequently was not as sincere in his revolt, but he represented very fairly the modern type of brain-endowed workman, who is from birth at issue with the lingering old world.  That is, he represented it intellectually; there was, however, much in his character which does not mark the proletarian as such.  Essentially his nature was very gentle and ductile, and be had strong affections.  Probably he could not have told you, with any approach to accuracy, how often he had been in love, or fancied himself so, and for Ackroyd being in love was, to tell the truth, a matter of vastly more importance than all the political and social and religious questions in the world.

He and Totty were still on the terms of that compact which had Christmas in view.  His own part was discharged conscientiously; he visited no public-houses and was steady at his work.  In fact, he had never had those tastes which bring a man to hopeless sottishness.  More than half his dissipation had come of that kind of vanity whereof young gentlemen of the best families have by no means the monopoly.  He liked people to talk about him; he liked to know that it was deemed a pity for such a clever young fellow to go to the dogs.  Even in his recklessness after the loss of Thyrza there was much of this element; disappointment in love is known to make one interesting, and if Luke could have brought on a mild fever, so that people could say he was in danger of dying, it would probably not have displeased him.  That was over now.  He persuaded himself that he was in love with Totty, and he told himself daily how glad he was in the thought of marrying her shortly after Christmas.