r jails only, as I allays says."

"A nice opinion you have of our sex," remarked Archie dryly.

"I have, sir. I could tell you things as would make your head waggle
with horror on there shoulders of yours."

"What about your son Sidney? Is he also wicked?"

"He would be if he had the strength, which he hasn't," exclaimed the
widow with uncomplimentary fervor. "He's Aaron's son, and Aaron hadn't
much to learn from them as is where he's gone too," and she looked
downward significantly.

"Sidney is a decent young fellow," said Lucy sharply. "How dare you
miscall your own flesh and blood, Widow Anne? My father thinks a great
deal of Sidney, else he would not have sent him to Malta. Do try and be
cheerful, there's a good soul. Sidney will tell you plenty to make you
laugh, when he comes home."

"If he ever does come home," sighed the old woman.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, it's all very well asking questions as can't be answered nohow, my
lady, but I be all of a mubble-fubble, that I be."

"What is a mubble-fubble?" asked Hope, staring.

"It's a queer-like feeling of death and sorrow and tears of blood and
not lifting your head for groans," said Widow Anne incoherently, "and
there's meanings in mubble-fumbles, as we're told in Scripture. Not but
what the Perfesser's been a kind gentleman to Sid in taking him
from going round with the laundry cart, and eddicating him to watch
camphorated corpses: not as what I'd like to keep an eye on them things
myself. But there's no more watching for my boy Sid, as I dreamed."

"What did you dream?" asked Lucy curiously.

Widow Anne threw up two gnarled hands, wrinkled with age and laundry
work, screwing up her face meanwhile.

"I dreamed of battle and murder and sudden death, my lady, with Sid in
his cold grave playing on a harp, angel-like. Yes!" she folded her rusty
shawl tightly round her spare form and nodded, "there was Sid, looking
beautiful in his coffin, and cut into a hash, as you might say, with--"

"Ugh! ugh!" shuddered Lucy, and Archie strove to draw her away.

"With murder written all over his poor face," pursued the widow. "And
I woke up screeching with cramp in my legs and pains in my lungs, and
beatings in my heart, and stiffness in my--"

"Oh, hang it, shut up!" shouted Archie, seeing that Lucy was growing
pale at this ghoulish recital, "don't be fool, woman. Professor Braddock
says that Bolton'll be back in three days with the mummy he has been
s