that you never could do anything to make him ashamed of you. I said so, and I believe it. Look, Clara! with all my heart I believe it. But now you've got your way, think of them a little.'
'It isn't your fault if I don't know how bad I am,' said the girl with a half-smile. That she did not resent his lecture more decidedly was no doubt due to its having afforded new proof of the power she had over him. Sidney was shaken with emotion; his voice all but failed him at the last.
'Good-bye,' he said, turning away.
Clara hesitated, looked at him, but finally also said 'Good-bye,' and went on alone.
She walked with bent head, and almost passed the house-door in absence of thought. On the threshold was standing Miss Peckover; she drew aside to let Clara pass. Between these two was a singular rivalry. Though by date a year younger than Clara, Clem gave no evidence of being physically less mature. In the matter of personal charms she regarded herself as by far Miss Hewett's superior, and resented vigorously the tone of the latter's behaviour to her. Clara, on the other hand, looked down upon Miss Peckover as a mere vulgar girl; she despised her brother Bob because he' had allowed himself to be inveigled by Clem; in intellect, in social standing, she considered herself out of all comparison with the landlady's daughter. Clem had the obvious advantage of being able to ridicule the Hewetts' poverty, and did so without sparing. Now, for instance, when Clara was about to pass with a distant 'Good-night,' Clem remarked:
'It's cold, ain't it? I wonder you don't put on a ulster, a night like this.'
'Thank you,' was the reply. 'I shan't consult you about how I'm to dress.'
Clem laughed, knowing she had the best of the joke.
The other went upstairs, and entered the back-room, where it was quite dark.
'That you, Clara?' asked Amy's voice. 'The candle's on the mantel-shelf.'
'Why aren't you asleep?' Clara returned sharply. But the irritation induced by Clem's triumph quickly passed in reflection on Sidney's mode of leave-taking. That had not at all annoyed her, but it had made her thoughtful. She lit the candle. Its light disclosed a room much barer than the other one. There was one bed, in which Amy and Annie lay (Clara had to share it with them), and a mattress placed on the floor, where reposed little Tom; a low chest of drawers with a very small looking-glass upon it, a washstand, a few boxes. Handsome girls, unfortunate enough to have brains to boot, do not cultivate the patient virtues in chambers of this description.
There was a knock at the door. Clara found her father standing there.
'Have you anything to tell me, my girl?' he asked in a subdued voice, furtively regarding her.
'I shall go on Monday.'
He drew back a step, and seemed about to return to the other room.
'Father, I shall have to give Mrs. Tubbs the five shillings for a few weeks. She's going to let me have a new dress.'
'Your earnin's is your own, Clara.'
'Yes; but I hope very soon to be able to give you something. It's hard for you, having no work.'
John brightened wonderfully.
'Don't you trouble, my dear. That's all right. Things'll come round somehow. You're a good girl. Good-night, my darlin'!'
He kissed her, and went consoled to his rest.
Miss Peckover kept going up and down between the kitchen and the front-door. Down below, Jane was cleaning a copper kettle. Clem, who had her sweetest morsel of cruelty yet in store, had devised this pleasant little job as a way of keeping the child employed till all was quiet.
She had just come down to watch the progress of the work, and to give a smart rap or two on the toiling fingers, when a heavy footstep in the passage caused her to dart upstairs again. It was Bob Hewett, returned from his evening recreations.
'Oh, that's you, is it?' cried Clem. 'Come down; I want to speak to you.'
'Wait till to-morrow,' answered Bob, advancing towards the stairs.
'Wait! we'll see about that!'
She sprang forward, and with a prompt exertion of muscle, admirable in its way, whirled Bob round and dragged him to the head of the kitchen flight. The young fellow took it in good part, and went down with her.
'You go up into the passage,' said Clem to her servant, and was immediately obeyed.
'Now,' resumed Miss Peckover, when she had closed the door, 'who have you been goin' about with to-night?'
'What are you talking about?' returned Bob, who had seated himself on the table, and was regarding Clem jocosely. 'I've been with some pals, that's all.'
'Pals! what sort o' pals? Do you call Pennyloaf Candy one o' your pals?'
She stood before him in a superb attitude, her head poised fiercely, her arms quivering at her sides, all the stature and vigour of her young body emphasised by muscular strain.
'Pennyloaf Candy!' Bob repeated, as if in scorn of the person so named. 'Get on with you! I'm sick of hearing you talk about her. Why I haven't seen her not these three weeks.'
'It's a – lie!' Clem's epithet was too vigorous for reproduction. 'Sukey Jollop saw you with her down by the meat-market, an' Jeck Bartley saw you too.'
'Jeck did?' He laughed with obstreperous scorn. 'Why, Jeck's gone to Homerton to his mother till Saturday night. Don't be such a bloomin' fool! Just because Suke Jollop's dead nuts on me, an' I won't have nothin' to say to her, she goes tellin' these bloomin' lies. When I see her next, I'll make her go down on her marrow-bones an' beg my pardon. See if I don't just!'
There was an engaging frankness in Bob's way of defending himself which evidently impressed Miss Peckover, though it did not immediately soothe her irritation. She put her arms a-kimbo, and examined him with a steady suspicion which would have disconcerted most young men. Bob, however, only laughed more heartily. The scene was prolonged. Bob had no recourse to tenderness to dismiss the girl's jealousy. His self-conceit was supreme, and had always stood him in such stead with the young ladies who, to use his own expression, were 'dead nuts on him,' that his love-making, under whatever circumstances, always took the form of genial banter de haut en bas. 'Don't be a bloomin' fool!' was the phrase he deemed of most efficacy in softening the female heart; and the result seemed to justify him, for after some half-hour's wrangling, Clem abandoned her hostile attitude, and eyed him with a savage kind of admiration.
'When are you goin' to buy me that locket, Bob, to put a bit of your 'air in?' she inquired pertinently.
'You just wait, can't you? There's a event coming off next week. I won't say nothing, but you just wait.'
'I'm tired o' waitin'. See here; you ain't goin' to best me out of it?'
'Me best you? Don't be a bloomin' fool, Clem!'
He laughed heartily, and in a few minutes allowed himself to be embraced and sent off to his chamber at the top of the house.
Clem summoned her servant from the passage. At the same moment there entered another lodger, the only one whose arrival Clem still awaited. His mode of ascending the stairs was singular; one would have imagined that he bore some heavy weight, for he proceeded very slowly, with a great clumping noise, surmounting one step at a time in the manner of a child. It was Mr. Marple, the cab-driver, and his way of
