TURGIS SEES HER lOg

was haunted by a mixed smell of cabbage, camphor, and
old newspapers. Turgis never noticed this smell, but
on the very rare occasions when he visited some other
and less odorous house, then he noticed the absence of
it, his nose declaring at once that it had found itself
in an unfamiliar atmosphere. Now he hung up his hat
and coat and marched straight into the back room.
There he discovered his landlady, who, having finished
dinner, was enjoying a cup of tea by the fire. She was
not enjoying this cup of tea, however, in an easy leisurely
fashion; she was sitting, almost tense, on the very edge
of the chair; and she had something of the air of a
cavalry general between two phases of a battle.

Mrs. Pelumpton had every right to such an air. She
was a short and very broad woman, with a mop of untidy
grey hair and a withered apple face, and it was easy to
see that all her adult life had been one long struggle,
and that unless she suffered a paralytic stroke or was
driven out of her wits, she would die fighting. In her
presence, progress seemed the most absurd myth. If
Mrs, Pelumpton could have been turned into the wife of
a marauding Viking or one of the women following
Attila's horde, she would have felt she had been given
a well-earned rest and would have been astonished at,
perhaps horrified by, the sudden colour and gaiety of
life.

As soon as she saw Turgis she put down her cup and,
as it were, jumped into the saddle again. She placed
on the table two covered plates, her lodger's dinner,
meat and vegetables under one cover, pudding under
the other.

'Tm a bit late to-day, Mrs. Pelumpton," said Turgis,
settling down.