THE ENGLISH REVIEW

"My father hasn't come," wailed Annie plaintively. But
her mother was primed with courage.

"Never mind. They'll bring him when he does come--
like a log." She meant there would be no scene. "And he
may sleep on the floor till he wakes himself. I know he'll not
go to work to-morrow after this !"*

The children had their hands and faces wiped with a flannel.
They were very quiet. When they had put on their night-
dresses, they said their prayers, the boy mumbling. The
mother looked down at them, at the brown silken bush of
intertwining curls in the nape of the girl's neck, at the little
black head of the lad, and her heart burst with anger at their
father who caused all three such distress. The children hid
their faces in her skirts for comfort.

When Mrs. Bates came down, the room was strangely empty,
with a tension of expectancy. She took up her sewing and
stitched for some time without raising her head. Meantime
her anger tinged with fear.

The clock struck eight and she rose suddenly, dropping
her sewing on her chair. She went to the stairfoot door,
opened it, listening. Then she went out, locking the door behind
her.

Something scuffled in the yard, and she started, though she
knew it was only the rats with which the place was overrun.
The night was very dark. In the great bay of railway lines,
bulked with trucks, there was no trace of light, only away back
she could see a few yellow lamps at the pit-top, and the red
smear of the burning pit-bank on the night. She hurried along
the edge of the track, then, crossing the converging lines, came
to the stile by the white gates, whence she emerged on the road.
Then the fear which had led her shrank. People were walking
up to New Brinsley ; she saw the lights in the houses; twenty
yards further on were the broad windows of the "Prince of
Wales ," very warm and bright, and the loud voices of men
could be heard distinctly. What a fool she had been to
imagine that anything had happened to him ! He was merely
drinking over there at the "Prince of Wales ." She faltered.
She had never yet been to fetch him, and she never would go.
So she continued her walk towards the long straggling line of
houses, standing blank on the highway. She entered a passage
between the dwellings.

"Mr. Rigley ?--Yes ! Did you want him ? No, he's not
in at this minute."

The raw-boned woman leaned forward from her dark scullery

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