LITMIR.BIZ

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I won't do it. You can stay till eleven if you like, and I can read.”

      “Go to bed, Gyp,” he said to his girl. “We won't keep mater waiting.”

      “Annie has left the candle burning, Lily,” said Mrs. Morel; “I think you will see.”

      “Yes, thank you. Good-night, Mrs. Morel.”

      William kissed his sweetheart at the foot of the stairs, and she went. He returned to the kitchen.

      “Can't you trust us, mother?” he repeated, rather offended.

      “My boy, I tell you I don't BELIEVE in leaving two young things like you alone downstairs when everyone else is in bed.”

      And he was forced to take this answer. He kissed his mother good-night.

      At Easter he came over alone. And then he discussed his sweetheart endlessly with his mother.

      “You know, mother, when I'm away from her I don't care for her a bit. I shouldn't care if I never saw her again. But, then, when I'm with her in the evenings I am awfully fond of her.”

      “It's a queer sort of love to marry on,” said Mrs. Morel, “if she holds you no more than that!”

      “It IS funny!” he exclaimed. It worried and perplexed him. “But yet—there's so much between us now I couldn't give her up.”

      “You know best,” said Mrs. Morel. “But if it is as you say, I wouldn't call it LOVE—at any rate, it doesn't look much like it.”

      “Oh, I don't know, mother. She's an orphan, and—”

      They never came to any sort of conclusion. He seemed puzzled and rather fretted. She was rather reserved. All his strength and money went in keeping this girl. He could scarcely afford to take his mother to Nottingham when he came over.

      Paul's wages had been raised at Christmas to ten shillings, to his great joy. He was quite happy at Jordan's, but his health suffered from the long hours and the confinement. His mother, to whom he became more and more significant, thought how to help.

      His half-day holiday was on Monday afternoon. On a Monday morning in May, as the two sat alone at breakfast, she said:

      “I think it will be a fine day.”

      He looked up in surprise. This meant something.

      “You know Mr. Leivers has gone to live on a new farm. Well, he asked me last week if I wouldn't go and see Mrs. Leivers, and I promised to bring you on Monday if it's fine. Shall we go?”

      “I say, little woman, how lovely!” he cried. “And we'll go this afternoon?”

      Paul hurried off to the station jubilant. Down Derby Road was a cherry-tree that glistened. The old brick wall by the Statutes ground burned scarlet, spring was a very flame of green. And the steep swoop of highroad lay, in its cool morning dust, splendid with patterns of sunshine and shadow, perfectly still. The trees sloped their great green shoulders proudly; and inside the warehouse all the morning, the boy had a vision of spring outside.

      When he came home at dinner-time his mother was rather excited.

      “Are we going?” he asked.

      “When I'm ready,” she replied.

      Presently he got up.

      “Go and get dressed while I wash up,” he said.

      She did so. He washed the pots, straightened, and then took her boots. They were quite clean. Mrs. Morel was one of those naturally exquisite people who can walk in mud without dirtying their shoes. But Paul had to clean them for her. They were kid boots at eight shillings a pair. He, however, thought them the most dainty boots in the world, and he cleaned them with as much reverence as if they had been flowers.

      Suddenly she appeared in the inner doorway rather shyly. She had got a new cotton blouse on. Paul jumped up and went forward.

      “Oh, my stars!” he exclaimed. “What a bobby-dazzler!”

      She sniffed in a little haughty way, and put her head up.

      “It's not a bobby-dazzler at all!” she replied. “It's very quiet.”

      She walked forward, whilst he hovered round her.

      “Well,” she asked, quite shy, but pretending to be high and mighty, “do you like it?”

      “Awfully! You ARE a fine little woman to go jaunting out with!”

      He went and surveyed her from the back.

      “Well,” he said, “if I was walking down the street behind you, I should say: 'Doesn't THAT little person fancy herself!”'

      “Well, she doesn't,” replied Mrs. Morel. “She's not sure it suits her.”

      “Oh no! she wants to be in dirty black, looking as if she was wrapped in burnt paper. It DOES suit you, and I say you look nice.”

      She sniffed in her little way, pleased, but pretending to know better.

      “Well,” she said, “it's cost me just three shillings. You couldn't have got it ready-made for that price, could you?”

      “I should think you couldn't,” he replied.

      “And, you know, it's good stuff.”

      “Awfully pretty,” he said.

      The blouse was white, with a little sprig of heliotrope and black.

      “Too young for me, though, I'm afraid,” she said.

      “Too young for you!” he exclaimed in disgust. “Why don't you buy some false white hair and stick it on your head.”

      “I s'll soon have no need,” she replied. “I'm going white fast enough.”

      “Well, you've no business to,” he said. “What do I want with a white-haired mother?”

      “I'm afraid you'll have to put up with one, my lad,” she said rather strangely.

      They set off in great style, she carrying the umbrella William had given her, because of the sun. Paul was considerably taller than she, though he was not big. He fancied himself.

      On the fallow land the young wheat shone silkily. Minton pit waved its plumes of white steam, coughed, and rattled hoarsely.

      “Now look at that!” said Mrs. Morel. Mother and son stood on the road to watch. Along the ridge of the great pit-hill crawled a little group in silhouette against the sky, a horse, a small truck, and a man. They climbed the incline against the heavens. At the end the man tipped the wagon. There was an undue rattle as the waste fell down the sheer slope of the enormous bank.

      “You sit a minute, mother,” he said, and she took a seat on a bank, whilst he sketched rapidly. She was silent whilst he worked, looking round at the afternoon, the red cottages shining among their greenness.

      “The world is a wonderful place,” she said, “and wonderfully beautiful.”

      “And so's the pit,” he said. “Look how it heaps together, like something alive almost—a big creature that you don't know.”

      “Yes,” she said. “Perhaps!”

      “And all the trucks standing waiting, like a string of beasts to be fed,” he said.

      “And very thankful I am they ARE standing,” she said, “for that means they'll turn middling time this week.”

      “But I like the feel of MEN on things, while they're alive. There's a feel of men about trucks, because they've been handled with men's hands, all of them.”

      “Yes,” said Mrs. Morel.

      They went along under the trees of the highroad. He was constantly informing her, but she was interested. They passed the end of Nethermere, that was tossing its sunshine like petals lightly in its lap. Then

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