ow she laughed at the humors of her own narrative.

"But those days are gone," she continued. "I met Robbie last night,
and I says, says I, 'Have you pawned your dancing shoes, Robbie, as
you're so glum?' And that's what he is, save when he's tipsy, and then
what do ye think the maizelt creature does?"

"What?" said Rotha.

"Why," answered Liza, with a big tear near to toppling over the corner
of her eye, "why, the crack't 'un goes and gathers up all the maimed
dogs in Wythburn; 'Becca Rudd's 'Dash,' and that's lame on a hind leg,
and Nancy Grey's 'Meg,' and you know she's blind of one eye, and Grace
M'Nippen's 'King Dick,' and he's been broken back't this many a long
year, and they all up and follow Robbie when he's nigh almost drunk,
and then he's right--away he goes with his cap a' one side, and all
the folks laughin'--the big poddish-head!"

There was a great sob for Liza in the heart of the humor of that
situation; and trying no longer to conceal her sorrow at her lover's
relapse into drinking habits, she laid her head on Rotha's breast and
wept outright.

"We must go to Mrs. Ray; she'll be lonely, poor old thing," said
Rotha, drying Liza's eyes; "besides, she hasn't had her supper, you
know."

The girls left the dairy, where the churning had made small progress
as yet, and went through the kitchen towards the room where the Dame
of Shoulthwaite lay in that long silence which had begun sooner with
her than with others.

As they passed towards the invalid's room, Mrs. Garth came in at the
porch. It was that lady's first visit for years, and her advent on
this occasion seemed to the girls to forebode some ill. But her manner
had undergone an extraordinary transformation. Her spiteful tone was
gone, and the look of sourness, which had often suggested to Liza her
affinity to the plums that grew in her own garden, had given place to
what seemed to be a look of extreme benevolence.

"It's slashy and cold, but I've come to see my old neighbor," she
said. "I'm sure I've suffered lang and sair ower her affliction, poor
body."

Without much show of welcome from Rotha, the three women went into
Mrs. Ray's room and sat down.

"Poor body, who wad have thought it?" said Mrs. Garth, putting her
apron to her eye as she looked up at the vacant gaze in the eyes of
the sufferer. "I care not now how soon my awn glass may run out. I've
so fret myself ower this mischance that the wrinkles'll soon come."

"She needn't wait