know_."

She nodded emphatically. Marcella laughed.

"I know you were very fond of him, Mrs. Jellison, and looked after him
very well, too."

"Oh, I don't say nothin' about that," said Mrs. Jellison, hastily. "But
all the same you kin reckon it up, and see for yoursen. Fower year--an'
fire upstairs, an' fire downstairs, an' fire all night, an' soomthin'
allus wanted. An' he such an objeck afore he died! It do seem like a
holiday now to sit a bit."

And she crossed her hands on her lap with a long breath of content. A
lock of grey hair had escaped from her bonnet, across her wrinkled
forehead, and gave her a half-careless rakish air. Her youth of long
ago--a youth of mad spirits, and of an extraordinary capacity for
physical enjoyment, seemed at times to pierce to the surface again, even
through her load of years. But in general she had a dreamy, sunny look,
as of one fed with humorous fancies, but disinclined often to the
trouble of communicating them.

"Well, I missed my daughter, I kin tell you," said Mrs. Brunt, with a
sigh, "though she took a deal more lookin' after nor your good man, Mrs.
Jellison."

Mrs. Brunt was a gentle, pretty old woman, who lived in another of the
village almshouses, next door to the Pattons, and was always ready to
help her neighbours in their domestic toils. Her last remaining
daughter, the victim of a horrible spinal disease, had died some nine or
ten months before the Boyces arrived at Mellor. Marcella had already
heard the story several times, but it was part of her social gift that
she was a good listener to such things even at the twentieth hearing.

"You wouldn't have her back though," she said gently, turning towards
the speaker.

"No, I wouldn't have her back, miss," said Mrs. Brunt, raising her hand
to brush away a tear, partly the result of feeling, partly of a
long-established habit. "But I do miss her nights terrible! 'Mother,
ain't it ten o'clock?--mother, look at the clock, do, mother--ain't it
time for my stuff, mother--oh, I do _hope_ it is.' That was her stuff,
miss, to make her sleep. And when she'd got it, she'd _groan_--you'd
think she couldn't be asleep, and yet she was, dead-like--for two hours.
I didn't get no rest with her, and now I don't seem to get no rest
without her."

And again Mrs. Brunt put her hand up to her eyes.

"Ah, you were allus one for toilin' an' frettin'," said Mrs. Jellison,
calmly. "A body must get through wi' it when it's there, but