“Wouldn’t you like to retire into private life, Ebenezer?” asked his hostess.  “I’m sure you could, couldn’t you?”

“Well, Louisa,” he replied with hesitation, “if it comes to that, I could.  But I hardly know how I should spend my time.”

The conversation turned to the subject of Polly, and, as they were alone together, Mrs. Clover exhibited the letter she had received from that young lady.

“Now what have you to say to that, Ebenezer?  Don’t you call it shameful?”

Mr. Sparkes sighed deeply.

“I’ve warned her, Louisa, I’ve warned her solemn.  What more can I do?”

“You see how she goes on about Mr. Gammon.  Now I’m as sure as I am of anything that it’s all lies.  I don’t believe Mr. Gammon has insulted her.  There was something happened before she left Mrs. Bubb’s—­a bit of unpleasantness there’s no need to talk about; but I’m as sure as I sit here, Ebenezer, that Mr. Gammon wouldn’t insult any girl in the way Polly says.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

Mrs. Clover glanced at the door and betrayed uneasiness.

“To tell you the truth he doesn’t come here just now.  You won’t let it go any further, Ebenezer, but the truth is he began to take a sort of fancy to Minnie, and he told me about it, just as he ought to a’done, and I had to tell him plain that it wasn’t a bit of use.  For one thing Minnie was too young, and what’s more, she hadn’t even given half a thought to him in that way; and I wouldn’t have the child worried about such things, because, as you know, she’s delicate, and it doesn’t take much to upset her in her mind, and then she can’t sleep at nights.  So I told Mr. Gammon plain and straight, and he took it in the right spirit, but he hasn’t been here since.  And I’m as sure as anything that Polly’s letter is a nasty, mean bit of falsehood, though I’m sorry to have to say it to you, Ebenezer.”

Mr. Sparkes had the beginning of a cold in the head, which did not tend to make him cheerful.  Sitting by the fireside, very upright in his decent suit of Sunday black, he looked more than ever like a clergyman, perchance a curate who is growing old without hope of a benefice.  Fortunately there entered about tea-time a young man in much better spirits, evidently a welcome friend of Mrs. Clover’s; his name was Nelson.  On his arrival Minnie joined the company, and it would have been remarked by anyone with an interest in the affairs of the family that Mrs. Clover was not at all reluctant to see her daughter and this young man amiably conversing.  Mr. Nelson had something not unlike the carriage and tone of a gentleman; he talked quietly, though light-heartedly, and from remarks he let fall it appeared that he was somehow connected with the decorative arts.  Minnie and he dropped into a discussion of some new ceramic design put forth by Doulton’s; they seemed to understand each other, and grew more animated as they exchanged opinions.  The hostess, meanwhile, kept glancing at them with a smile of benevolence.