'Send Flintwinch here!'

In a moment the girl had withdrawn, and the old man stood within
the door. 'What! You're hammer and tongs, already, you two?' he
said, coolly stroking his face. 'I thought you would be. I was
pretty sure of it.'

'Flintwinch!' said the mother, 'look at my son. Look at him!'

'Well, I AM looking at him,' said Flintwinch.

She stretched out the arm with which she had shielded herself, and
as she went on, pointed at the object of her anger.

'In the very hour of his return almost--before the shoe upon his
foot is dry--he asperses his father's memory to his mother! Asks
his mother to become, with him, a spy upon his father's
transactions through a lifetime! Has misgivings that the goods of
this world which we have painfully got together early and late,
with wear and tear and toil and self-denial, are so much plunder;
and asks to whom they shall be given up, as reparation and
restitution!'

Although she said this raging, she said it in a voice so far from
being beyond her control that it was even lower than her usual
tone. She also spoke with great distinctness.

'Reparation!' said she. 'Yes, truly! It is easy for him to talk
of reparation, fresh from journeying and junketing in foreign