mysterious
writing on his face, reflected from one of the great bottles, as if
Death had marked him: 'Mine.'

The medical testimony was more precise and more to the purpose than it
sometimes is in a Court of Justice. 'You had better send for something
to cover it. All's over.'

Therefore, the police sent for something to cover it, and it was covered
and borne through the streets, the people falling away. After it,
went the dolls' dressmaker, hiding her face in the Jewish skirts, and
clinging to them with one hand, while with the other she plied her
stick. It was carried home, and, by reason that the staircase was very
narrow, it was put down in the parlour--the little working-bench being
set aside to make room for it--and there, in the midst of the dolls with
no speculation in their eyes, lay Mr Dolls with no speculation in his.

Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was in
the dressmaker's pocket to get mourning for Mr Dolls. As the old man,
Riah, sat by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found it
difficult to make out whether she really did realize that the deceased
had been her father.

'If my poor boy,' she would say, 'had been brought up better, he might
have done better. Not that I reproach myself. I hope I have no cause for
that.'

'None indeed, Jenny, I am very certain.'

'Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. But you see it
is so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, work, work, all day.
When he was out of employment, I couldn't always keep him near me. He
got fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into the
streets. And he never did well in the streets, he never did well out of
sight. How often it happens with children!'

'Too often, even in this sad sense!' thought the old man.

'How can I say what I might have turned out myself, but for my back
having been so bad and my legs so queer, when I was young!' the
dressmaker would go on. 'I had nothing to do but work, and so I worked.
I couldn't play. But my poor unfortunate child could play, and it turned
out the worse for him.'

'And not for him alone, Jenny.'

'Well! I don't know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunate
boy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called him a quantity of
names;' shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears. 'I don't
know that his going wrong was much the worse for me. If it ever was, let
us forget it.'

'You are a good