breakfast without another word passing between them. Just as he was
leaving the house, to go to the warehouse as usual, he turned back and
put his head into the bright, neat, tidy kitchen, where all the women
breakfasted in the morning:

"You'll think of what I said, Mrs. Frank" (this was her name with the
lodgers), "and let me have your opinion upon it to-night."

Alice was thankful that her mother and Norah were too busy talking
together to attend much to this speech. She determined not to think
about it at all through the day; and, of course, the effort not to think
made her think all the more. At night she sent up Norah with his tea.
But Mr. Openshaw almost knocked Norah down as she was going out at the
door, by pushing past her and calling out "Mrs. Frank!" in an impatient
voice, at the top of the stairs.

Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning to his
words.

"Well, Mrs. Frank," he said, "what answer? Don't make it too long; for I
have lots of office-work to get through to-night."

"I hardly know what you meant, sir," said truthful Alice.

"Well! I should have thought you might have guessed. You're not new at
this sort of work, and I am. However, I'll make it plain this time. Will
you have me to be thy wedded husband, and serve me, and love me, and
honour me, and all that sort of thing? Because if you will, I will do as
much by you, and be a father to your child--and that's more than is put
in the prayer-book. Now, I'm a man of my word; and what I say, I feel;