“But, Mrs Roper, the Lupexes have had nothing to do with my going.”

“Oh, yes, they have; I understand it all.  But what could I do, Mr Eames?  I’ve been giving them warning every week for the last six months; but the more I give them warning, the more they won’t go.  Unless I were to send for a policeman, and have a row in the house—­”

“But I haven’t complained of the Lupexes, Mrs Roper.”

“You wouldn’t be quitting without any reason, Mr Eames.  You are not going to be married in earnest, are you, Mr Eames?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You may tell me; you may, indeed.  I won’t say a word,—­not to anybody.  It hasn’t been my fault about Amelia.  It hasn’t really.”

“Who says there’s been any fault?”

“I can see, Mr Eames.  Of course it didn’t do for me to interfere.  And if you had liked her, I will say I believe she’d have made as good a wife as any young man ever took; and she can make a few pounds go farther than most girls.  You can understand a mother’s feelings; and if there was to be anything, I couldn’t spoil it; could I, now?”

“But there isn’t to be anything.”

“So I’ve told her for months past.  I’m not going to say anything to blame you; but young men ought to be very particular; indeed they ought.”  Johnny did not choose to hint to the disconsolate mother that it also behoved young women to be very particular, but he thought it.  “I’ve wished many a time, Mr Eames, that she had never come here; indeed I have.  But what’s a mother to do?  I couldn’t put her outside the door.”  Then Mrs Roper raised her apron up to her eyes, and began to sob.

“I’m very sorry if I’ve made any mischief,” said Johnny.

“It hasn’t been your fault,” continued the poor woman, from whom, as her tears became uncontrollable, her true feelings forced themselves and the real outpouring of her feminine nature.  “Nor it hasn’t been my fault.  But I knew what it would come to when I saw how she was going on; and I told her so.  I knew you wouldn’t put up with the likes of her.”

“Indeed, Mrs Roper, I’ve always had a great regard for her, and for you too.”

“But you weren’t going to marry her.  I’ve told her so all along, and I’ve begged her not to do it,—­almost on my knees I have; but she wouldn’t be said by me.  She never would.  She’s always been that wilful that I’d sooner have her away from me than with me.  Though she’s a good young woman in the house,—­she is, indeed, Mr Eames,—­and there isn’t a pair of hands in it that works so hard; but it was no use my talking.”

“I don’t think any harm has been done.”

“Yes, there has; great harm.  It has made the place not respectable.  It’s the Lupexes is the worst.  There’s Miss Spruce, who has been with me for nine years,—­ever since I’ve had the house,—­she’s been telling me this morning that she means to go into the country.  It’s all the same thing.  I understand it.  I can see it.  The house isn’t respectable, as it should be; and your mamma, if she were to know all, would have a right to be angry with me.  I did mean to be respectable, Mr Eames; I did indeed.”