`What's the matter?' she asked, and got no answer.

`What's the matter?' she insisted, getting cross.

`I don't know,' sobbed the child.

So she tried to reason him out of it, or to amuse him, but without effect. It made her feel beside herself. Then the father, always impatient, would jump from his chair and shout:

`If he doesn't stop, I'll smack him till he does.'

`You'll do nothing of the sort,' said the mother coldly. And then she carried the child into the yard, plumped him into his little chair, and said: `Now cry there, Misery!'

And then a butterfly on the rhubarb-leaves perhaps caught his eye, or at last he cried himself to sleep. These fits were not often, but they caused a shadow in Mrs Morel's heart, and her treatment of Paul was different from that of the other children.

Suddenly one morning as she was looking down the alley of the Bottoms for the barm-man, she heard a voice calling her. It was the thin little Mrs Anthony in brown velvet.

`Here, Mrs Morel, I want to tell you about your Willie.'

`Oh, do you?' replied Mrs Morel. `Why, what's the matter?'

`A lad as gets 'old of another an' rips his clothes off'n 'is back,' Mrs Anthony said, `wants showing something.'

`Your Alfred's as old as my William,' said Mrs Morel.

`'Appen 'e is, but that doesn't give him a right to get hold of the boy's collar, an' fair rip it clean off his back.'

`Well,' said Mrs Morel, `I don't thrash my children, and even if I did, I should want to hear their side of the tale.'

`They'd happen be a bit better if they did get a good hiding,' retorted Mrs Anthony. `When it comes ter rippin' a lad's clean collar off'n 'is back a purpose --'

`I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose,' said Mrs Morel.

`Make me a liar!' shouted Mrs Anthony.

Mrs Morel moved away and closed her gate. Her hand trembled as she held her mug of barm.

`But I s'll let your mester know,' Mrs Anthony cried after her.

At dinner-time, when William had finished his meal and wanted to be off again -- he was then eleven years old -- his mother said to him:

`What did you tear Alfred Anthony's collar for?'

`When did I tear his collar?'

`I don't know when, but his mother says you did.'

`Why -- it was yesterday -- an' it was torn a'ready.'