"''Arry,' said my mother, 'now—once for all—I forbid you to go near 'er. I won't 'ave you corrupted.'
"'Don't forbid him, Martha,' said Matilda. 'It's no use forbidding him. Because he will! Any boy with any heart and spunk in him would go and see her after that letter. One hundred and two, Brantismore Gardens, Earl's Court,'—she was very clear with the address—'it's not very far from here.'
"'I forbid you to go near 'er, 'Arry,' my mother reiterated. And then realising too late the full importance of Fanny's letter, she picked it up. 'I won't 'ave this answered. I'll burn it as it deserves. And forget about it. Banish it from my mind. There.'
"And then my mother stood up and making a curious noise in her throat like the strangulation of a sob, she put Fanny's letter into the fire and took the poker to thrust it into the glow and make it burn. We all stared in silence as the letter curled up and darkened, burst into a swift flame and became in an instant a writhing, agonised, crackling, black cinder. Then she sat down again, remained still for a moment, and then after a fierce struggle with her skirt-pocket dragged out a poor, old, dirty pocket-handkerchief and began to weep—at first quietly and then with a gathering passion. The rest of us sat aghast at this explosion.
"'You mustn't go near Fanny, 'Arry; not if mother forbids,' said Ernest at last, gently but firmly.
"Matilda looked at me in grim enquiry.
"'I shall,' I said, and was in a terror lest the unmanly tears behind my eyes should overflow.
"''Arry!' cried my mother amidst her sobs. 'You'll break—you'll break my heart! First Fanny! Then you.'
"'You see!' said Ernest.
"The storm of her weeping paused as though she waited to hear my answer. My silly little face must have been very red by this time and there was something wrong and uncontrollable about my voice, but I said what I meant to say. 'I shall go to Fanny,' I said, 'and I shall just ask her straight out whether she's leading a bad life.'