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"And afterward," said Rudolph, sadly, "you must obtain a priest to watch by the little girl the Morels have lost in the night. Go and register her death, and order a decent funeral. Here is money; spare not, for Morel's benefactress, whose mere agent I am, wishes all to go well."

Morel was upstairs and her son was painting in the kitchen he was very clever with his brush when there came a knock at the door. Crossly he put down his brush to go. At the same moment his mother opened a window upstairs and looked down. A pit-lad in his dirt stood on the threshold. "Is this Walter Morel's?" he asked. "Yes," said Mrs. Morel. "What is it?" But she had guessed already.

"Did you?" said Dawes, shrinking, but almost leaving himself in the other's hands. He got up rather stiffly, and reached for Morel's glass. "Let me fill you up," he said. Paul jumped up. "You sit still," he said. But Dawes, with rather shaky hand, continued to mix the drink. "Say when," he said. "Thanks!" replied the other. "But you've no business to get up."

Rudolph had never seen Miss Dimpleton but by the somber light in Morel's garret, or on the landing, equally obscure; he was therefore dazzled by the brilliant freshness of the girl, when he entered silently her room, lit by two large windows. He remained for an instant motionless, struck by the charming picture before him.

Pipelet, burning for revenge on the bailiffs, for the insults offered to Rudolph, looked at her saucepan with an air of inspiration, and cried out, heroically: "Morel's debts are paid; they will now have plenty to eat, and no longer stand in need of my soup heads!"

"Morel Walter Morel!" the cashier repeated, his finger and thumb on the invoice, ready to pass on. Paul was suffering convulsions of self-consciousness, and could not or would not shout. The backs of the men obliterated him. Then Mr. Winterbottom came to the rescue. "He's here. Where is he? Morel's lad?" The fat, red, bald little man peered round with keen eyes. He pointed at the fireplace.

Morel's intimacy with her second son was more subtle and fine, perhaps not so passionate as with her eldest. It was the rule that Paul should fetch the money on Friday afternoons. The colliers of the five pits were paid on Fridays, but not individually.

His mother looked so strange, Paul kissed her, trembling. "Ha mother!" he said softly. Morel came in, walking unevenly. His hat was over one corner of his eye. He balanced in the doorway. "At your mischief again?" he said venomously. Mrs. Morel's emotion turned into sudden hate of the drunkard who had come in thus upon her. "At any rate, it is sober," she said. "H'm h'm! h'm h'm!" he sneered.

He and she sat at evening picturing what it would be like. Annie came in, and Leonard, and Alice, and Kitty. There was wild rejoicing and anticipation. Paul told Miriam. She seemed to brood with joy over it. But the Morel's house rang with excitement. They were to go on Saturday morning by the seven train. Paul suggested that Miriam should sleep at his house, because it was so far for her to walk.

After dinner we sat until late, while the older men told the young missionaries of atrocities of which, in the twenty years and within the last three years, they had been witnesses. Already in Mr. Morel's books I had read their testimony, but hearing from the men themselves the tales of outrage and cruelty gave them a fresh and more intimate value, and sent me to bed hot and sick with indignation.