ress? I'll be
round the first thing on Monday morning.'

The information was given.

'You just make a note o' that in your head, Mary, my dear,' the old mam
continued. ''Taint very likely I'll forget, but my memory do play me a
trick now and then. Ask me about things as happened fifty years ago,
and I'll serve you as well as the almanac. It's the same with my eyes.
I used to be near-sighted, and now I'll read you the sign-board across
the street easier than that big bill on the wall.'

He raised his violin, and struck out with spirit 'The March of the Men
of Harlech.'

'That's the teen as always goes with me on my way to work,' he said,
with a laugh. 'It keeps up my courage; this old timber o' mine stumps
time on the pavement, and I feel I'm good for something yet. If only
the hand'll keep steady! Firm enough yet, eh, Mr. Ackroyd?'

He swept the bow through a few ringing chords.

'Firm enough,' said Luke, 'and a fine tone, too. I suppose the older
the fiddle is the better it gets?'

'Ah, 'taint like these fingers. Old Jo Racket played this instrument
more than sixty years ago; so far back I can answer for it. You
remember Jo, Mrs. Bower, ma'am? Yes, yes, you can just remember him;
you was a little 'un when he'd use to crawl round from the work'us of a
Sunday to the "Green Man." When he went into the 'Ouse he give the
fiddle to Mat Trent, Lyddy and Thyrza's father, Mr. Ackroyd. Ah, talk
of a player! You should a' heard what Mat could do with this 'ere
instrument. What do _you_ say, Mrs. Bower, ma'am?'

'He was a good player, was Mr. Trent; but not better than somebody else
we know of, eh, Mr. Hackroyd?'

'Now don't you go pervertin' my judgment with flattery, ma'am,' said
the old man, looking pleased for all that. 'Matthew Trent was Matthew
Trent, an' Lambeth 'll never know another like him. He was made o'
music! When did you hear any man with a tenor voice like his? He made
songs, too, Mr. Ackroyd--words, music, an' all. Why, Thyrza sings one
of 'em still.'

'But how does she remember it?' Ackroyd asked with much interest. 'He
died when she was a baby.'

'Yes, yes, she don't remember it of her father. It was me as taught her
it, to be sure, as I did most o' the other songs she knows.'

'But she wasn't a baby either,' put in Mrs. Bower. 'She was four years;
an' Lydia was four years older.'

'Four years an' two months,' said Mr. Boddy, nodding with a laugh.
'Let's be ac'rate, Mrs. Bower, ma'am. Thirteen y