but by a side wind, that she was going home the next day, made his
appearance in Wimborne Square, somewhat perplexed--both at the move,
and at her leaving him in ignorance of the same. He was a
cabinet-maker in an honest shop in the neighbourhood, and in
education, faculty, and general worth, considerably Alice's
superior--a fact which had hitherto rather pleased her, but now gave
zest to the change which she imagined had subverted their former
relation. Full of the sense of her new superiority, she met him draped
in an indescribable strangeness. John Jephson felt, at the very first
word, as if her voice came from the other side of the English Channel.
He wondered what he had done, or rather what Alice could imagine he
had done or said, to put her in such tantrums.

"Alice, my dear," he said--for John was a man to go straight at the
enemy, "what's amiss? What's come over you? You ain't altogether like
your own self to-night! And here I find you're goin' away, and ne'er a
word to me about it! What have I done?"

Alice's chin alone made reply. She waited the fitting moment, with
splendour to astonish, and with grandeur to subdue her lover. To tell
the sad truth, she was no longer sure that it would be well to
encourage him on the old footing; was she not standing on tiptoe, her
skirts in her hand, on the brink of the brook that parted serfdom from
gentility, on the point of stepping daintily across, and leaving
domestic slavery, red hands, caps, and obedience behind her? How then
was she to marry a man that had black nails, and smelt of glue? It was
incumbent on her at least, for propriety's sake, to render him at once
aware that it was in condescension ineffable she took any notice of
him.