quite as much as it amused Mavis), he was the simplest, the
kindliest of men. He was very poor; although his poverty largely
arose from the advantage which pupils and parents took of his
boundless good nature, Mavis did not hear him utter a complaining
word of a living soul, always excepting Gellybrand.

She learned how Mr Poulter had been happily married, although
childless; also, that his wife had died of a chill caught by walking
home, insufficiently clad, from an "All Night" in bleak weather. For
all the pain that her absence caused in his life, he looked bravely,
confidently forward (sometimes with tears in his eyes) to when they
should meet again, this time never to part. When the evenings were
fine, Mr Poulter would take Miss Nippett and Mavis for a ride on a
tram car, returning in time for the night classes. Upon one of these
excursions, someone in the tram car pointed out Mr Poulter to a
friend in the hearing of the dancing-master; this was enough to make
Mr Poulter radiantly happy for the best part of two days, much to
Mavis's delight.

Another human trait in the proprietor of "Poulter's" was that he was
insensible to Miss Nippett's loyalty to the academy, he taking her
devotion as a matter of course.

Miss Nippett and Mavis, also, became friends; the latter was moved
by the touching faith which the shrivelled-up little accompanist had
in the academy, its future, and, above all, its proprietor. If the
rivalry between "Poulter's" and "Gellybrand's" could have been
decided by an appeal to force, Miss Nippett would have been found in
the van of "Poulter's" adherents, firmly imbued with the
righteousness of her cause. She lived in Blomfield Road, Shepherd's