Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles. Henry Wood

to their private pursuits. The work of the past week had gone into the warehouses; and the fresh work brought out would not be begun until Monday morning. Some of them, as Mrs. Buffle has informed us, did not begin it then. The women chiefly cleaned their houses and mended their clothes; some washed and ironed—Honey Fair was not famous for its management—not going to bed till Sunday morning; some did their marketing; and a few, careless and lazy, spent it in running from house to house, or congregated in the road to gossip.

      About half-past eight, one of the latter suddenly lifted the latch of a house door and thrust in her head. It was Joe Fisher's wife. Her face was red, and her cap in tatters.

      "Is our Becky in here, Mrs. Carter?"

      Mrs. Carter was busy. She was the maternal parent of Miss Betsy. Her kitchen fire was out, her furniture was heaped one thing upon another; a pail of water stood ready to wash the brick floor, when she should have finished rubbing up the grate, and her hands and face were as grimy as the black-lead.

      "There's no Becky here," snapped she.

      "I can't find her," returned Mrs. Fisher. "I thought her might be along of your Betsy. I say, here's your husband coming round the corner. There's Mark Mason and Robert East and Dale along of him. And—my! what has that young 'un of East's been doing to hisself? He's black from head to foot. Come and look."

      Mrs. Carter disdained the invitation. She was a hard-working, thrifty woman, but a cross one. Priding herself upon her cleanliness, she perpetually returned loud thanks that she was not as the dirty ones around her. She was the Pharisee amidst many publicans.

      "If I passed my time staring and gossiping as some does, where 'ud my work be?" was her rebuke. "Shut the door, Suke Fisher."

      Suke Fisher did as she was bid. She turned her wrists back upon her hips, and walked to meet the advancing party, having discerned their approach by the light of the gas-lamps. "Be you going to be sold for a blackamoor?" demanded she of the boy.

      The boy laughed. His head, face, shoulders, hands, were ornamented with a thick, black liquid, not unlike blacking. He appeared to enjoy the treat, as if he had been anointed with some fragrant oil.

      "He is not a bad spectacle, is he, Dame Fisher?" remarked the young man, whom she had called Robert East.

      "What's a-done it?" questioned she.

      "Him and Jacky Brumm got larking, and upset the dye-pot upon themselves. We rubbed 'em down with the leather shreds, but it keeps on dripping from their hair."

      "Won't Charlotte warm his back for him!" apostrophised Mrs. Fisher.

      The boy threw a disdainful look at her, in return for the remark. "Charlotte's not so fond of warming backs. She never even scolds for an accident."

      The boy and Robert East were half-brothers. They entered one of the cottages. Robert East and his sister were between twenty and thirty, and the boy was ten. Their mother had died early, and the young boy's mother, their father's second wife, died when the child was born. The father also died. How Robert and his sister, the one then seventeen, the other fourteen, had struggled to make a living for themselves, and to bring up the baby, they alone knew. The manner in which they had succeeded was a marvel to many; none were more respectable now than they were in all Honey Fair.

      Charlotte, neat and nice, sat by her bright kitchen fire, a savoury stew cooking on the hob beside it. It was her custom to have something good for supper on a Saturday night. Did she make home attractive on that night to draw her brother from the seductions of the public-house? Most likely. And she had her reward: for Robert never failed to come. The cloth was laid, the red bricks of the floor were clean, and Charlotte's face, as she looked up from her stocking-mending, was bright. It darkened to consternation, however, when she cast her eyes on the boy.

      "Tom, what have you been doing?"

      "Jacky Brumm threw a pot of dye over me, Charlotte."

      "There's not much real damage, Charlotte," interposed her brother. "It looks worse than it is. I'll get it out of his hair presently, and put his clothes into a pail of water. What have you got to-night? It smells good."

      He alluded to supper, and took off the lid of the saucepan to peep in. She had some stewed beef, with carrots, and the savoury steam ascended to Robert's pleased face.

      Very few in Honey Fair managed as did Charlotte East. How she did her housework no one knew. Not a woman, married or single, got through more glove-sewing than Charlotte. Not one kept her house in better order: and her clothes and her brother's were neat and respectable, week-days as well as Sundays. Her work was taken into the warehouse on Saturday mornings, and her marketing was done. In the afternoon she cleaned her house, and by four o'clock was ready to sit down to her mending. No one ever saw her in a bustle, and yet all her work was done; and well done. Perhaps one great secret of it was that she rose very early in the morning, winter and summer.

      "Look, Robert, here is a nice book I have bought," said she, putting a periodical into his hands. "It comes out weekly. I shall take it in."

      Robert turned over the leaves. "It seems very interesting," he said presently. "Here's a paper that tells all about the Holy Land. And another that tells us how glass is made; I have often wondered."

      "You can read it to us of an evening while I work," said she. "It will be quite a help to our getting on Tom: almost as good as sending him to school. I gave–"

      The words were interrupted. The door was violently burst open, and a woman entered the kitchen; knocking at doors before entering was not the fashion in Honey Fair. The intruder was Mrs. Brumm.

      "I say, Robert East, did you see anything of my husband?"

      "I saw him go into the Horned Ram."

      "Then I wish the Horned Ram was into him!" wrathfully retorted Mrs. Brumm. "He vowed faithfully he'd come home with his wages the first thing after leaving work. He knows I have not a thing in the place for to-morrow—and Dame Buffle looking out for her money. I have a good mind to go down to the Horned Ram, and be on to him!"

      Robert East offered no opinion upon this delicate point. He remembered the last time Mrs. Brumm had gone to the Horned Ram to be "on" to her husband, and what it had produced. A midnight quarrel that disturbed the slumbers of Honey Fair.

      "Who was along of him?" pursued she.

      "Three or four of them. Hubbard and Jones, I saw go in: and Adam Thorneycroft."

      A quick rising of the head, as if startled, and a faint accession of colour, told that one of those names had struck, perhaps unpleasantly, on the ear of Charlotte East. "Where are your own earnings?" she asked of Mrs. Brumm.

      "I have had to take them to Bankes's," was the rueful reply. "It's a good deal now, and they're in a regular tantrum this week, and wouldn't even wait till Monday. They threatened to tell Brumm, and it frightened me out of my seventeen senses. And now, for him to go into that dratted Horned Ram with his wages! and me without a pennypiece! It's not more for the necessaries I want to get in, than for the things that is in pawn. I can't iron nothing: the irons is there."

      Charlotte, busy still, turned round. "I would not put in irons, and such things, that I wanted to use."