"'Earty don't do things," he replied, sidling towards the door. "'E does people," and with footwork that would have made a champion fly-weight envious, he was out in the passage before Mrs. Bindle could retort.

Long and late that night she pondered over the indignities to which she had been subjected during the day. There were wanton moments when she yearned to be able to display to the neighbours the whole of her laundry—and Bindle's. Herself a connoisseur of garments that passed through the wash-tub, she knew that those of her house could hold their own, as joyously white and playful in the breeze as any that her neighbours were able to produce.

She had suffered with a still tongue; yet it had not turned aside wrath, particularly her own wrath. Instinctively, her thoughts reverted to the time when an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth were regarded as legal tender.

All that night and the next day she pondered. When Bindle returned on the Wednesday evening,[Pg 51] he found her almost light-hearted. "Gospel Bells", Mrs. Bindle's favourite hymn, was going with a rare swing, and during the meal that followed, she was bordering on the conversational.

[Pg 51]

Several times he regarded her curiously.

"Somethink's up," he muttered; but, too wise in his experience, he made no endeavour to probe the mystery.

For the rest of the week Mrs. Bindle spent every odd moment she could spare from her domestic duties in collecting what she mentally described as "rubbish". She went through each room with a toothcomb. By Saturday night, she had accumulated in the wash-house, a pile of odds and ends which, as Bindle said, would have been enough to start a rag-and-bone shop.

Curiously enough, Mrs. Bindle did not resent his remark; instead she almost smiled, so marked was her expression of grim complacency.

On Sunday at chapel, she sang with a vigour and fervency that attracted to her the curious gaze of more than one pair of eyes.

"Mrs. B.'s got somethink in 'er stockin'," mumbled Bindle, as he rose from the supper-table that night. "Never seen 'er so cheerio in all my puff. I 'ope it ain't drink."

Monday morning dawned, and Mrs. Bindle was up an hour earlier than usual, still almost blithe in her manner.

"Shouldn't be 

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