"Which do you like?"

"Fish--only the bones are so worrying."

"I'll see to the bones for you. Have fish because I'm having it, and we
can keep each other company," she said. Knollys darted away.

"I'd advise you to make a good tea, miss," said Knollys with a firmly
respectful air. "There's nothing until breakfast at eight to-morrow."

Marcella nodded at him. Next minute she heard Ole Fred swearing at him
for not being quicker, but Knollys took it all with an impersonally
sarcastic air. She cut up the little boy's bread and butter into strips,
arranged his fish, and watched, with amusement, his father turn to him
with a jerk of remembrance.

"It's good of you to look after young Jimmy," he said, smiling at
Marcella. "He misses his mother."

"Is she dead?"

"Yes. He's only me. There are a surprising lot of lonely people in the
world, aren't there? The little lady next to me--she's a widow, I find.
It's hard when a woman has had a man to depend on and suddenly finds
herself left to battle with the world, isn't it? Women are such fragile
little flowers to me--they want protecting from the winds."

Marcella looked at him; he was rather fat: the excitement of his talk
with the little lady had made his forehead shine; when he smiled his
drooping moustache could not hide a row of blackened, broken teeth. He