Each for himself is still the rule:

We learn it when we go to school—

The devil take the hindmost, O!

—A. H. Clough, Poem (1849)

And now let us jump twenty months. It is a brisk early Feb-ruary day in the year 1869. Gladstone has in the interval at last reached No. 10 Downing Street; the last public execu-tion in England has taken place; Mill’s Subjection of Women and Girton College are about to appear. The Thames is its usual infamous mud-gray. But the sky above is derisively blue; and looking up, one might be in Florence.

Looking down, along the new embankment in Chelsea, there are traces of snow on the ground. Yet there is also, if only in the sunlight, the first faint ghost of spring. I am ver ... I am sure the young woman whom I should have liked to show pushing a perambulator (but can’t, since they do not come into use for another decade) had never heard of Ca-tullus, nor would have thought much of all that going on about unhappy love even if she had. But she knew the sen-timent about spring. After all, she had just left the result of an earlier spring at home (a mile away to the west) and so blanketed and swaddled and swathed that it might just as well have been a bulb beneath the ground. It is also clear, trimly though she contrives to dress, that like all good gardeners she prefers her bulbs planted en masse. There is something in that idle slow walk of expectant mothers; the least offensive arrogance in the world, though still an arrogance.

This idle and subtly proud young woman leans for a moment over the parapet and stares at the gray ebb. Pink cheeks, and superb wheaten-lashed eyes, eyes that concede a little in blueness to the sky over her, but nothing in brilliance; London could never have bred a thing so pure. Yet when she turns and surveys the handsome row of brick houses, some new, some old, that front the river across the road it is very evident that she holds nothing against London. And it is a face without envy, as it takes in the well-to-do houses; but full of a naive happiness that such fine things exist.

A hansom approaches, from the direction of central Lon-don. The blue-gray eyes watch it, in a way that suggests the watcher still finds such banal elements of the London scene fascinating and strange. It draws to a stop outside a large house opposite. A woman emerges, steps down to the pave-ment, takes a coin from her purse.

The mouth of the girl on the embankment falls open. A moment’s pallor attacks the pink, and then she flushes. The cabby touches the brim of his hat with two fingers. His fare walks quickly towards the front door of the house behind her. The girl moves forward to the curb, half hiding behind a tree trunk. The woman opens the front door, disappears inside.

“’Twas ‘er, Sam. I saw ‘er clear as—“

“I can’t hardly believe it.”

But he could; indeed, some sixth or seventh sense in him had almost expected it. He had looked up the old cook, Mrs. Rogers, on his return to London; and received from her a detailed account of Charles’s final black weeks in Kensington. That was a long time ago now. Outwardly he had shared her disapproval of their former master. But inwardly something had stirred; being a matchmaker is one thing. A match-breaker is something other.

Sam and Mary were staring at each other—a dark wonder-ment in her eyes matching a dark doubt in his—in a front parlor that was minuscule, yet not too badly furnished. A bright fire burned in the grate. And as they questioned each other the door opened and a tiny maid, an unprepossessing girl of fourteen, came in carrying the now partly unswaddled infant—the last good crop, I believe, ever to come out of Carslake’s Barn. Sam immediately took the bundle in his arms and dandled it and caused screams, a fairly invariable procedure when he returned from work. Mary nastily took the precious burden and grinned at the foolish father, while the little waif by the door grinned in sympathy at both. And now we can see distinctly that Mary is many months gone with another child.

“Well, my love, I’m hoff to partake of refreshment. You put the supper on. ‘Arriet?”

“Yes. sir. Read’in narf-n-nour, sir.”

“There’s a good girl. My love.” And as if nothing was on his mind, he kissed Mary on the cheek, then tickled the baby’s ribs.

He did not look quite so happy a man five minutes later, when he sat in the sawdusted corner of a nearby public house, with a gin and hot water in front of him. He certainly had everv outward reason to be happy. He did not own his own shop, but he had something nearly as good. The first baby had been a girl, but that was a small disappoint-ment he felt confident would soon be remedied.

Sam had played his cards very right in Lyme. Aunt Tranter had been a soft touch from the start. He had thrown himself, with Mary’s aid, on her mercy. Had he not lost all his prospects by his brave giving in of notice? Was it not gospel that Mr. Charles had promised him a loan, of four hundred (always ask a higher price than you dare) to set him up in business? What business?

“Same as Mr. Freeman’s, m’m, honly in a very, very ‘umble way.”

And he had played the Sarah card very well. For the first few days nothing would make him betray his late master’s guilty secrets; his lips were sealed. But Mrs. Tranter was so kind—Colonel Locke at Jericho House was looking for a manservant, and Sam’s unemploy-ment was of a very short duration. So was his remaining bachelor-hood; and the cere-mony that concluded it was at the bride’s mistress’s expense. Clearly he had to make some return.

Like all lonely old ladies Aunt Tranter was forever in search of someone to adopt and help; and she was not allowed to forget that Sam wanted to go into the haberdash-ery line. Thus it was that one day, when staying in London with her sister, Mrs. Tranter ventured to broach the matter to her brother-in-law. At first he was inclined to shake his head. But then he was gently reminded how honorably the young servant had behaved; and he knew better than Mrs. Tranter to what good use Sam’s information had been and might still be put.

“Very well, Ann. I will see what there is. There may be a vacancy.”

Thus Sam gained a footing, a very lowly one, in the great store. But it was enough. What deficiencies he had in educa-tion he supplied with his natural sharpness. His training as a servant stood him in good stead in dealing with customers. He dr............