Mrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while⁠—not without passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes⁠—and presently chirps up in her cheery manner, “So I says to George when I goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe outside), ‘What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy penitent.’ ‘Why, Mrs. Bagnet,’ says George, ‘it’s because I am melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.’ ‘What have you done, old fellow?’ I says. ‘Why, Mrs.