"Oh, I beg pardon, I'm sure!" said this youngish man suddenly; and
with a swift turn he disappeared whence he had come.

He was Mr. Povey, a person universally esteemed, both within and
without the shop, the surrogate of bedridden Mr. Baines, the
unfailing comfort and stand-by of Mrs. Baines, the fount and
radiating centre of order and discipline in the shop; a quiet,
diffident, secretive, tedious, and obstinate youngish man,
absolutely faithful, absolutely efficient in his sphere; without
brilliance, without distinction; perhaps rather little-minded,
certainly narrow-minded; but what a force in the shop! The shop
was inconceivable without Mr. Povey. He was under twenty and not
out of his apprenticeship when Mr. Baines had been struck down,
and he had at once proved his worth. Of the assistants, he alone
slept in the house. His bedroom was next to that of his employer;
there was a door between the two chambers, and the two steps led
down from the larger to the less.

The girls regained their feet, Sophia with Constance's help. It
was not easy to right a capsized crinoline. They both began to
laugh nervously, with a trace of hysteria.

"I thought he'd gone to the dentist's," whispered Constance.

Mr. Povey's toothache had been causing anxiety in the microcosm
for two days, and it had been clearly understood at dinner that
Thursday morning that Mr. Povey was to set forth to Oulsnam Bros.,
the dentists at Hillport, without any delay. Only on Thursdays and
Sundays did Mr. Povey dine with the family. On other days he dined
later, by himself, but at the family table, when Mrs. Baines or