Tales of the Five Towns

told her father, who was reading the Staffordshire Signal in his accustomed solitude, that the boys were staying later for cards, but t

fast, the proper method of washing Herbert's new flannels (Herbert would be very angry if they were shrunk), and the dog-biscui

sity to enter, the room would have struck them as unfamiliar, and they might perhaps have exclaimed with momentary interest, 'So this is May's room!' And some hint that May was more than a daughter and sister-a woman, withdrawn, secret, disturbing, living her own inner life side by side with the household life-might have penetrated their obtuse paternal and fraternal masculinity. Her b

gesture, and turned within the room, examining its contents as if she had not seen them before: the wardrobe, the chest of drawers, which was also a dressing-table, the washstand, the dwarf book-case with its store of Edna Lyalls, Elizabeth Gaskells, Thackerays, Charlotte Yonges, Charlotte Bront?s, a Thomas Hardy or so, and some old school-books. She looked at the pictures, inc

. Everyone knew of May's passion. Many women admired her taste; a few were shocked and puzzled by it. All the men of her acquaintance either pitied or despised her for it. Her father said nothing. Her brothers were less cautious, and summed up their opinion of Lionel in the curt, scornful assertion that he showed a tendency to cheat at tennis. But May would never hear ill of him; he was a god to her, and she could not hide her worship. For more than a year, until lately, she had been almost sure of him, and then came a faint vague rumour concerning Lionel

put the fragments in the gra

the stairs; he hesitated, and

burnin

swered calmly, 'I'm only burning

don't burn th

asse

l, using the mantelpiece for a desk: 'Dear home. Good-night,

placed it prominently in front of the clock. But after she had looked a

ent along the corridor and caught a glimpse of her light under the door, Jim cried gaily:

, securing it carefully with both pins, extinguished the candles, and crept quietly downstairs, and so by the back-door into the garden. Carlo, the retriever, came halfway out of his