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mean, I was goin' to ask for a word with you on your way out. It's . . . it's about a house.''A house, Joe?''Aye. Yes. Well, you see, it's like this, miss. I'm for bein' married soon.'Her lips parted, her head moved, and she repeated,
    'Married?' and with the word she experienced a feeling like a smothered blow hitting her ribs.'Yes. Yes, I know it's sudden, and it's sudden for me an' all. It ... well, to tell you the truth, miss, an' in private, it was sort of sprung on me, or I sprung it on meself, you could say, yesterday. It's Lily Whitmore.''Lily? Oh, she's a very pretty girl, very Pretty.''Yes, she is, miss, an' nice with it, but . . . . . . Well - ' He now looked down to-56wards the desk and, reaching out his hand, he began to draw small circles with his forefinger on the edge of it as he went on, 'I can ... I can say this to you, miss, because I've always been able to talk to you, haven't I, over the years? Well, it's like this: I've had my eye on her since well, she was sixteen or so. Now she's eighteen. But I've never thought there was much chance for me because, as you said, she is a bonny lass, an' there have been others that had eyes an' all, and this didn't escape them either. So I felt on the sidelines as it were, looking on. And then yesterday I found she was in a fix, an' so ... You know what I mean, miss, don't you, in a fix? She's . . . she's . . . well'- the circles increased in size as he directed his gaze down to the table again-'she's goin' to have a bairn.''Oh. Oh. She's . . . ? Oh, I'm sorry.'
    'Aye, so am I. But I'm takin' it on me shoulders because, you see, I want her, an' it's a chance I mightn't have got otherwise. At the same time, though, I wish it could have been otherwise, you know.'She now pushed her riding hat upwards off her brow and pressed a loose strand of 57under it before she said tentatively, 'The father? What . . . what about the father, I mean?''Aye. Aye, I know what you mean, miss. But there's as much likelihood of the father marrying her as of-' he was about to say, (me marryin' you,' but, his mind springing to a nursery rhyme that he remembered since his first and only attendance at Sunday School, he said, 'of the sky falling. The line was mixed up with Henny Penny and Cocky Locky going to tell somebody or other that the sky was going to fall, and so he added,
    'That's a line from a rhyme I remember hearing the only time I went to Sunday School.''You know who this man is then?''Aye, I do, miss.'Ts he of the-' She couldn't say, gentry, and she couldn't say, class, so she changed to, T mean, is he in some kind of high position?''Aye, you could say that, miss. Though I don't know what he does for a livin'. I don'tthink he earns his livin'. None of his type do.'
    58'Oh. Oh, I see. Well, may I ask if he knows of her . , . condition?''Aye. Aye, you may ask, miss, and I can answer, he does. And he tried to pay her off.''Are you going to do anything about it?''No. No, I'm not, miss, because if I did it would bring more disgrace on her head. So I'm just goin' to stand the racket.
    It'll be put on me in any case in most quarters.'His hand had left the table now. It was rubbing the bottom of his chin and mixing the sweat with the grime from his fingers.But for a moment there arose in her mind a picture of him dressed in a fine worsted suit, with tan leggings gleaming over highly polished shoes; at his neck a grey silk cravat and, topping his clean-shaven face and fair hair, a high hat. Such a fine figure of a man; and he could have been if only ... if only . . . yes, if the sky should fall. Odd that he should remember that nursery rhyme since his once and only attendance at Sunday School. The teacher must have been a nice person in that she had deviated from spending the Sunday afternoon stuffing God and the Bible into their little heads.He was speaking again: 'Well, as I said, 59what I wanted to ask you was about a house. D'you have ... or I mean, does your rent men tell you of any to let?