MADE. OF A CENTENARIAN WHO GOT HALF-A-SOVEREIGN

563 CHAPTER XLVI HOW LIZARANN SAW THE SEA, AND A CHINESE LADY WROTE A BAD ACCOUNT OF HER TO HER FRIENDS. HOW IT NEVER REACHED JIM, AND MISS FOSSETT WAS WIRED FOR. HOW THE RECTOR HAD TO GO TO CHIPPING CHESTER 574 CHAPTER XLVII OF THE APPROACH OF LIZARANN'S RETURN, AND HOW JIM'S HOPES WERE FED BY OLD DAVID. HOW JIM DID NOT CURSE A MOTOR-CAR. HOW LIZARANN DIED OF TUBERCULOSIS 585 CHAPTER XLVIII HOW JIM ADDED STORIES TO HIS AIR-CASTLE, AND SMOKED HIS LAST PIPE. HOW HE KNEW CHALLIS'S VOICE AGAIN. WHO HAD TO BE AT THE PARK GATE BY NINE. HOW JIM HEARD THE MOTOR COMING BACK, AND LIZARANN'S VOICE. HOW ATHELSTAN TAYLOR ARRIVED WITHOUT HER. OF JIM'S DEATH, AND HERS 599 CHAPTER XLIX JUDITH'S VAGARIES. HOW SHE BROUGHT SIR ALFRED CHALLIS, INSENSIBLE, TO ROYD HALL IN A MOTOR. A MESSAGE PER MR. BROWNRIGG TO THE RECTOR. HOW TO PROBE THE MYSTERY. JUDITH'S RESERVE. PUBLIC IMPATIENCE. THE CHAUFFEUR'S TESTIMONY 614 CHAPTER L OF MARIANNE AT BROADSTAIRS, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A "DREADNOUGHT." AND HOW SHE READ OF HER HUSBAND'S ACCIDENT ON ITS ARMOUR-PLATES, AND AT ONCE STARTED FOR ROYD. BUT SUPPOSE THEY CALLED HER "LADY CHALLIS"! 628 CHAPTER LI HOW CHALLIS CAME TO, AND SPOKE. BUT HE ASKED FOR MARIANNE, AND DIDN'T KNOW JUDITH FROM ADAM. HOW THE LATTER PROMISED TO TELL HER FATHER. THE WORLD'S GUESSES, MEANWHILE. HOW THE DUCHESS SAID WHAT THE POINT WAS, AND CHALLIS RELAPSED 643 CHAPTER LII OF JUDITH'S STATE OF MIND, AND HOW SHE TOLD HER FATHER. BUT DID NOT IMPRESS HIM AS HE WOULD HAVE WISHED. WHO KNOWS WHAT JUDITH WAS? OF A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR TO THE HALL. HOW NO ONE RECOGNIZED MARIANNE. IS MY HUSBAND DYING? A SCENE ON THE BIG STAIRCASE, AND HOW TWO TOFFS WERE FAR FROM ODIOUS. HOW THE NURSE RECOGNIZED ATHELSTAN TAYLOR. HOW JUDITH SAID GOOD-BYE TO CHALLIS. HOW IT CAME OUT WHO MR. KEITH HORNE'S FRIEND WAS 652 CHAPTER LIII A POSTSCRIPT. MR. AND MRS. ATHELSTAN TAYLOR. MR. AND MRS. BROWNRIGG. ODDS AND ENDS OF SEQUELS. THE DREAM VANISHES, READABLE BITS AND ALL! 674 THE AUTHOR TO HIS READERS ONLY 688

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IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN

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IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN

CHAPTER I

OF LIZARANN COUPLAND, HER FATHER AND HER FAMILY. OF HIS PREVIOUS STORY, AND LIZARANN'S BIRTH

Lizarann Coupland did not know what her father's employment was; but she knew that, every morning, she saw him to the corner of Bladen Street, put his left hand on the palin's of number three, and left him to shift for himself. She was on honour not to watch him down Bladen Street, and she had a keen sense of honour. She also knew by experience that when her aunt, Mrs. Steptoe, said she would learn her a lesson she wouldn't easy forget, Mrs. Steptoe was not referring to teacher-book instruction like at school. And this lesson, Lizarann understood, would be imparted by her aunt with some blunt instrument, perhaps a slipper, in case she failed to observe her promise. She was not to go spyin' and starin' after Father no farther than where it was wrote up "Old Vatted Rum, fivepence-halfpenny" at the Green Man and Still. It was a compact, and Lizarann observed it—always running away as fast as possible to get out of reach of temptation as soon as ever her father's fingers closed on the knob of a particular low paling. It was a paling good to turn upside down over, which affirmed the territorial rights of the Green Man over a certain six-foot foreshore of pavement liable else to be claimed by the Crown, or the Authority.

Lizarann's father, James Coupland, was stone-blind, and the reason she was sent with him every morning was because he had to cross Cazenove Street, and Dartley Street, and Trott Street, before you come to pavement all the way, and it wasn't safe. As soon as you got to the Green Man, why there you were! Only like touchin' the wall, and your stick on the right, and on you kep' direck. But as to what Lizarann's father did, at some place on this side of the next bad crossing, his six-year-old daughter never could guess. All she knew was that she was useful, and assisted towards some public object, not easily understood by a little girl, when she piloted her father to and from his starting-point of continuous pavement, as a ship through shoals and cross-currents, to the mouth of a canal. But the metaphor of Lizarann's flight when she left the ship to its captain is not an easy one. If only metaphors would not be so lobsided!

That her father was a supplicant for public charity was a surmise that never crossed Lizarann's mind. An idea can be got of how she thought of him by any young lady who knows, for instance, that her father is in the Custom-House, but who has never seen the Custom-House, and has no idea what he does there; or even by one who, having for parent a sexton, and being kept in ignorance of his functions, conceives of him as the Archbishop of Canterbury; or more easily—to take yet another parallel—by one situated like Lizarann's little friend Bridgetticks, down a turnin' out of Trott Street, whose grandfather was in an almshouse; but who was inflated past all bearing by his