her.  ‘Is it to be spirits or ale, Mr Crumb?’ she said, when the other two men had helped themselves.  He turned round and gave her a look of love that might have softened the heart of an Amazon; but instead of speaking he held up his tumbler, and bobbed his head at the beer jug.  Then she filled it to the brim, frothing it in the manner in which he loved to have it frothed.  He raised it to his mouth slowly, and poured the liquor in as though to a vat.  Then she filled it again.  He had been her lover, and she would be as kind to him as she knew how,—­short of love.

There was a good deal of eating done, for more ham came in, and another mountain of cabbage; but very...