education had by this time sufficiently ousted his humanity to keep
him quite firm; though his mother might have led an idyllic life with
her faithful fruiterer and greengrocer, and nobody have been anything
the worse in the world.

Her lameness became more confirmed as time went on, and she seldom or
never left the house in the long southern thoroughfare, where she
seemed to be pining her heart away. 'Why mayn't I say to Sam that
I'll marry him? Why mayn't I?' she would murmur plaintively to
herself when nobody was near.

Some four years after this date a middle-aged man was standing at the
door of the largest fruiterer's shop in Aldbrickham. He was the
proprietor, but to-day, instead of his usual business attire, he wore
a neat suit of black; and his window was partly shuttered. From the
railway-station a funeral procession was seen approaching: it passed
his door and went out of the town towards the village of Gaymead.
The man, whose eyes were wet, held his hat in his hand as the
vehicles moved by; while from the mourning coach a young smooth-
shaven priest in a high waistcoat looked black as a cloud at the shop
keeper standing there.

December 1891.




FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE