"Greater humanity."

The world, largely as it had unfolded itself to Phillis, consisted as yet to her wholly of the easy classes. That there were poor people in the country was a matter of hearsay. That is, she had caught a glimpse during a certain walk with CÆsar of a class whose ways were clearly not her ways, nor their manner of thought hers. She had now to learn—as a step to that wider sympathy first awakened by the butter-woman's baby—that there is a kind of folk who are more dangerous than picturesque, to be pitied rather than to be painted, to be schooled and disciplined rather than to be looked at.

She learned this lesson through Mrs. L'Estrange, whose laudable custom it was to pay periodical visits to a certain row of cottages. They were not nice cottages, but nasty. They faced an unrelenting ditch, noisome, green, and putrid. They were slatternly and out at elbows. The people who lived in them were unpleasant to look at or to think of; the men belonged to the riverside—they were boat-cads and touts; and if there is any one pursuit more demoralising than another, it is that of launching boats into the river, handing the oars, and helping out the crew.

In the daytime the cottages were in the hands of the wives. Towards nightfall the men returned: those who had money enough were drunk; those who were sober envied those who were drunk. Both drunk and sober found scolding wives, squalid homes, and crying children. Both drunk and sober lay down with curses, and slept till the morning, when they awoke, and went forth again with the jocund curse of dawn.

Nothing so beautiful as the civilisation of the period. Half a mile from Agatha L'Estrange and Phillis Fleming were these cottages. Almost within earshot of a house where vice was unknown, or only dimly seen like a ghost at twilight, stood the hovels where virtue was impossible, and goodness a dream of an unknown land. What notion do they have of the gentle life, these dwellers in misery and squalor? What fond ideas of wealth's power to procure unlimited gratification for the throat do they conceive, these men and women whose only pleasure is to drink beer till they drop?

One day Phillis went there with Agatha.

It was such a bright warm morning, the river was so sparkling, the skies were so blue, the gardens were so sunny, the song of the birds so loud, the laburnums so golden, and the lilacs so glorious to behold, that the girl's heart was full of all the sweet thoughts which she had learned of others or framed for herself—thoughts of poets, which echoed in her brain and flowed down the current of her thoughts like the swans upon the river; happy thoughts of youth and innocence.

She walked beside her companion with light and elastic tread; she looked about her with the fresh unconscious grace that belongs to childhood; it was her greatest charm. But the contentment of her soul was rudely shaken—the beauty went out of the day—when Mrs. L'Estrange only led her away from the leafy road and took her into her "Row." There the long arms of the green trees were changed into protruding sticks, on which linen was hanging out to dry; the songs of the birds became the cry of children and the scolding of women; for flowers there was the iridescence on the puddles of soap-suds; for greenhouse were dirty windows and open doors which looked into squalid interiors.

"I am going to see old Mr. Medlicott," said Mrs. L'Estrange cheerfully, picking her accustomed way among the cabbage-stalks, wash-tubs, and other evidences of human habitation.

The women looked out of their houses and retired hastily. Presently they came out again, and stood every one at her door with a clean apron on, each prepared to lie like an ambassador for the good of the family.

In a great chair by a fire there sat an old woman—a malignant old woman. She looked up and scowled at the ladies; then she looked at the fire and scowled; then she pointed to the corner and scowled again.

"Look at him," she growled in a hoarse crescendo. "Look at him, lying like a pig—like a pig. Do you hear?"

"I hear."

The voice came from what Phillis took at first to be a heap of rags. She was right, because she could not see beneath the rags the supine form of a man.

Mrs. L'Estrange took no notice of the old woman's introduction to the human pig. That phenomenon repeated his answer:

"I hear. I'm her beloved grandson, ladies. I'm Jack-in-the-Water."

"Get up and work. Go down to your river. Comes home and lies down, he does—yah! ye lazy pig; says he's goin' to have the horrors, he does—yah! ye drunken pig; prigs my money for drink—yah! ye thievin' pig. Get up and go out of the place. Leave me and the ladies to talk. Go, I say!"

Jack-in-the-Water arose slowly. He was a long-legged creature with shaky limbs, and when he stood upright his head nearly touched the rafters of the low unceiled room. And he had a face at sight of which Phillis shuddered—an animal face with no forehead; a cruel, bad, selfish face, all jowl and no front. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips were thick. He twitched and trembled all over—his legs trembled; his hands trembled; his cheeks twitched.

"'Orrors!" he said in a husky voice. "And should ha' had the 'orrors if I hadn't a took the money. Two-and-tuppence."

He pushed past Phillis, who shrank in alarm, and disappeared.

"Well, Mrs. Medlicott, and how are we?" asked Mrs. L'Estrange in a cheerful voice—she took no manner of notice of the man.

"Worse. What have you got for me? Money? I want money. Flannel? I want flannel. Physic? I want physic. Brandy? I want brandy very bad; I never wanted it so bad. What have you got? Gimme brandy and you shall read me a tract."

"You forget," said Agatha, "that I never read to you."

"Let the young lady read, then. Come here, missy. Lord, Lord! Don'tee be afraid of an old woman as has got no teeth. Come now. Gimme your hand. Ay, ay, ay! Eh, eh, eh! Here's a pretty little hand."

"Now, Mrs. Medlicott, you said you would not do that any more. You know it is all foolish wickedness.

"Foolish wickedness," echoed the Witch of Endor. "Never after to-day, my lady. Come, my pretty lass, take off the glove and gimme the hand."

Without knowing what she did, Phillis drew off the glove from her left hand. The old woman leaned forward in her chair and looked at the lines. She was a fierce and eager old woman. Life was strong in her yet, despite her fourscore years; her eyes were bright and fiery; her toothless gums chattered without speaking; her long lean fingers shook as they seized on the girl's dainty palm.

"Ay, ah! Eh, eh! The line of life is long. A silent childhood! a love-knot hindered; go, on, girl—go on, wife and mother; happy life and happy age, but far away—not here—far away; a lucky lot with him you love; to sleep by his side for fifty years and more; to see your children and your grandchildren; to watch the sun rise and set from your door—a happy life, but far away."

She dropped the girl's hand as quickly as she had seized it, and fell back in her chair mumbling and moaning.

"Gimme brandy, Mrs. L'Estrange—you are a charitable woman—gimme brandy. And port-wine!—ah! lemme have some port-wine. Tea? Don't forget the tea. And Jack-in-the-Water drinks awful, he does. Worse than his father; worse than his grandfather—and they all went off at five-and-thirty."

"I will send you up a basket, Mrs. Medlicott. Come, Phillis, I have got to go to the next cottage."

But Phillis stayed behind a moment.

She touched the old woman on the forehead with her fingers and said softly—

"Tell me, are you happy? Do you suffer?"

"Happy? only the rich are happy. Suffer? of course I suffer. All the pore suffers."

"Poor thing! May I come and see you and bring you things?"

"Of course you may."

"And you will tell me about yourself?"

"Child, child!" cried the old woman impatiently. "Tell you about myself? There, there, you're one of them the Lord loves—wife and mother; happy life and happy death; childer and grandchilder; but far away, far away."

Mrs. Medlicott gave Phillis her first insight into that life so near and yet so distant from us. She should have been introduced to the ideal cottage, where the stalwart husband supports the smiling wife, and both do honour to the intellectual curate with the long coat and the lofty brow. Where are they—lofty brow of priest and stalwart form of virtuous peasant? Remark that Phillis was a child; the first effect of the years upon a child is to sadden it. Philemon and Baucis in their cot would have rejoiced her; that of old Mrs. Medlicott set her thinking.

And while she drew from memory the old fortune-teller in her cottage, certain words of Abraham Dyson's came back to her:

"Life is a joy to one and a burden to ninety-nine. Remember in your joy as many as you can of the ninety-nine.

"Learn that you cannot be entirely happy, because of the ninety-nine who are entirely wretched.

"When you reach this knowledge, Phillis, be sure that the Coping-stone is not far-off."