'We thought it must be their step when we heard you,' said Mrs.Hall.
The needy wanderer looked again on the floor.

'I see--I see,' he murmured.

'Why, indeed, should I have come to-night?
Such folk as I are not wanted here at these times, naturally.

And I have no business here--spoiling other people's happiness.' 'Phil,' said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness of lip and severity of manner which were presumably not more than past events justified; 'since you speak like that to me, I'll speak honestly to you.

For these three years you have taken no thought for us.