so lugubrious and hypocritical a husband.

She had showered drinks on all her friends, and had, moreover, clattered
and screamed herself hoarse, when the church-clock outside slowly struck
eight. She started, changed countenance, and got up to pay at once.

'Why, there's another o' them half-crowns o' yourn, Bessie,' said a
consumptive-looking girl in a bedraggled hat and feathers, as Mrs.
Costrell handed her coin to the landlord. 'Wheriver do yer get 'em?'

'If yer don't ask no questions, I won't tell yer no lies,' said Bessie,
with quick impudence. 'Where did you get them hat and feathers?'

There was a coarse laugh from the company. The girl in the hat reddened
furiously, and she and Bessie--both of them in a quarrelsome state--
began to bandy words.

Meanwhile the landlord was showing the coin to his assistant at the bar.

'Rum, ain't it? I niver seed one o' them pieces in the village afore
this winter, an I've been 'ere twenty-two year come April.'

A decent-looking labourer, who did not often visit the 'Spotted Deer,'
was leaning over the bar and caught the words.

'Well then, I 'ave,' he said, promptly. 'I mind well as when I were a
lad, sixteen year ago, my fayther borrered a bit o' money off John
Bolderfield, to buy a cow with--an there was 'arf of it in them
'arf-crowns.'