* * * * *

There was not only the coffin to be ordered in Wotton, but suits of
black for himself and children, besides the joint of meat to be cooked
for the meal after the funeral. Mr Green did not hurry over his
purchases, but went about them with the leisurely attentiveness of one
anxious to do the right thing, but unaccustomed to the business of
making bargains.

His wages had been "made a hand on," lately; there had been brandy and
"sech-like" to buy for the missus; the neighbour to pay, leaving little
more than enough for bread for the rest of them. But now, with this
burying money--! The new-made widower enjoyed the hitherto undreamed-of
experience of knowing that he might put in for a glass at every
public-house he passed, and not exhaust it.

He treated himself to a tin of salmon to have with his supper, when he
got back to Dulditch. While his wife had been well and about, she had
been wont at rare intervals to supply such a "ralish" to the evening
meal. Having the means to indulge himself, his thoughts had at once
travelled to the luxury.

Yet, arrived at home, he had had too much beer to be very hungry, and
the thought of the dead wife, up there, just beyond the ceiling,
destroyed what little pleasure the feast might have held.

"Happen she'd been alive, she'd maybe ha' picked a mossel," he said to
himself.

That she could be totally indifferent to the delicacy, even although
dead and fairly started on her heavenward journeying, was a bewildering
fact his dull brain could scarcely grasp. He got up from the table, and
taking the unshaded lamp, walked heavily upstairs to look upon this
marvel--his wife who was no more.

He was a stolid creature, but was shaken enough to give a sharp growl
of fear when, from the other side of the rigid form upon the bed, a
head was lifted.

"Hello!" he called. "Hello! What yu a-doin' here? Now then! Come out o'
that, yu young warmint; don't, I'll hide ye."

The figure lying by the dead woman slipped to the ground. It wore a
brown frock and a crumpled white overall trimmed with lace.

"Hello!" the man said again. He looked stupidly at his little daughter,
then pulled aside the sheet which covered his wife.

In the waxen face, with lids still half-open above the dull eyes, with
lips drawn back to show the gums, was little change. Beneath the chin a
large white bow of coarse muslin had been tied. It was designed to hide
the thinness of th