en she
could not pilfer from him, and had endured patiently all these years
what seemed past endurance in expectation of the closing scene. She had
married and lived upon the prospect of his death, and it was come at
last; and now that it was come, the awfulness of that last struggle
overpowered her, and she wept and lamented as copiously as if her
husband had been the kindest and most liberal in the world. Still, she
was free, with competence, she hoped, in perspective? and this thought,
together with the ever all-pervading one of her idol, her treasure, her
only son, and his expectations, more than counterbalanced that of the
death she had witnessed.

'Come you, don't you be takking on so,' said one old woman soothingly,
as the widow rocked herself to and fro, and held her handkerchief to her
eyes.

'Tak' you this drop o' tea,' said another, 'it'll be doing you good,'

'The Lord will be having mercy on his soul,' said a third, whose
conscience was large when she was offering comfort.

'There now, keep up your spirits, Mrs Jinkins, fach,' said a fourth,
entering with a comfortable glass of gin and water that did seem of an
exhilarating nature.

'There's a comfort Howel will be to you now!' said a fifth triumphantly.

'Deed to goodness, Griffey Jinkins was a saving man, and you have lost
him, Mrs Jinkins, fach,' began the friend with the gin and water; 'but
I am seeing no use in takking on so. When John Jones died, he was
leaving me with ten children, and they have all come on somehow. And you
have only wan son, and he is so ginteel! Drink you this, my dear, and
don't be down-hearted.'

Mrs Jenkins turned from the tea to the gin and water with no apparent
reluctance, and swallowed a portion of it. Revived by the beverage, she
responded to the condolences of her friends by more rockings, sobs, and
applications of the handkerchief and finally unburdened herself of her
grief in the following manner.

'My son Howel, oh yes, he'll be a blessing to me, I know. Says I to my
poor Griffey--oh, dear, only to be thinking of him now!--says I, "Let us
be giving Howel a good eddication, and he so clever as never was, and
able to be learning everything he do put his mind to, and never daunted
at nothing--grammar, nor music, nor Latin, nor no heathen languages, and
able to read so soon as he could speak, and knowing all the beasts in
the ark one from another, when he was no bigger than that," says I, to
my poor Griffey; "oh,