He tramped away to the pantry for the food.

The sisters sat in silence. He brought another plate, and knife and fork. Then he said:

“An if it’s the same to you, I s’ll ta’e my coat off, like I allers do.”

And he took off his coat, and hung it on the peg, then sat down to table in his shirtsleeves: a shirt of thin, cream-coloured flannel.

“ ’Elp yerselves!” he said. “ ’Elp yerselves! Dunna wait f’r axin!”

He cut the bread, then sat motionless. Hilda felt, as Connie once used to, his power of silence and distance. She saw his smallish, sensitive, loose hand on the table. He was no simple workingman, not he: he was acting! acting!

“Still!” she said, as she took a little cheese. “It would be more natural if you spoke to us in normal English, not in vernacular.”