and dropped again.

“I remember,” said Louisa, reddening at her mistake, “I recollect, now, to have heard your domestic misfortunes spoken of, though I was not attending to the particulars at the time. It was not my meaning to ask a question that would give pain to anyone here. If I should ask any other question that may happen to have that result, give me credit, if you please, for being in ignorance how to speak to you as I ought.”

As Stephen had but a little while ago instinctively addressed himself to her, so she now instinctively addressed herself to Rachael. Her manner was short and abrupt, yet faltering and timid.

“He has told you what has passed between himself and my husband? You would be his first resource, I think.”

“I have heard the end of it, young lady,” said Rachael.

“Did I understand, that, being rejected by one employer, he would probably be rejected by all? I thought he said as much?”

“The chances are very small, young lady—next to nothing—for a man who gets a bad name among them.”

“What shall I understand that you mean by a bad name?”

“The name of being troublesome.”

“Then, by the prejudices of his own class, and by the prejudices of the other, he is sacrificed alike? Are the two so deeply separated in this town that there is no place whatever for an honest workman between them?”

Rachael shook her head in silence.

“He fell into suspicion,” said Louisa, “with his fellow-weavers because he had made a promise not to be one of them. I think it must have been to you that he made that promise. Might I ask you why he made it?”

Rachael burst into tears. “I didn’t seek it of him, poor lad. I prayed him to avoid trouble for his own good, little thinking he’d come to it through me. But I know he’d die a hundred deaths ere ever he’d break his word. I know that of him well.”

Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual thoughtful attitude, with his hand at his chin. He now spoke in a voice rather less steady than usual.

“No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what honour, an’ what love, an’ respect, I bear to Rachael, or wi’ what cause. When I passed that promess, I towd her true, she were th’ Angel o’ my life. ’Twere a solemn promess. ’Tis gone fro’ me, forever.”

Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a deference that was new in her. She looked from him to Rachael, and her features softened. “What will you do?” she asked him. And her voice had softened, too.

“Weel, ma’am,” said Stephen, making the best of it, with a smile, “when I ha’ finished off, I mun quit this part and try another. Fortnet or misfortnet, a man can but try; there’s nowt to be done wi’out tryin’—’cept laying down and dying.”

“How will you travel?”

“Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.”

Louisa coloured, and a purse appeared in her hand. The rustling of a bank-note was audible, as she unfolded one and laid it on the table.

“Rachael, will you tell him—for you know how, without offence—that this is freely his, to help him on his way? Will you entreat him to take it?”

“I canna do that, young lady,” she answered, turning her head aside. “Bless you for thinking o’ the poor lad wi’ such tenderness. But ’tis for him to know his heart, and what is right according to it.”

Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, in part overcome with quick sympathy, when this man of so much self-command, who had been so plain and steady through the late interview, lost his composure in a moment, and now stood with his hand before his face. She stretched out hers, as if she would have touched him; then checked herself, and remained still.

“Not e’en Rachael,” said Stephen, when he stood again with his face uncovered, “could mak’ sitch a kind offerin’, by onny words, kinder. T’ show that I’m not a man wi’out reason and gratitude, I’ll tak’ two pound. I’ll borrow ’t for t’ pay ’t back. ’Twill be the sweetest work as ever I ha’ done that puts it in my power t’ acknowledge once more my lastin’ thankfulness for this present action.”

She was fain to take up the note again, and to substitute the much smaller sum he had named. He was neither courtly, nor handsome, nor picturesque, in any respect, and yet his manner of accepting it, and of expressing his thanks