Mrs. Prichard's boys were
born there, the only chance of the old woman not having been the mother
of a convict's children lay in her having been possibly the wife of a
gaoler, at the best. And yet--she was such a nice, pretty old thing! Was
it conceivable?

Then in subsequent similar interviews Aunt M'riar, inquisitive-like,
tried to get further information. But very little was forthcoming beyond
the fact that Mrs. Prichard's husband was dead. What supported the
convict theory was that his widow never referred to any relatives of his
or her own. Mrs. Burr, her companion or concomitant--or at least
fellow-lodger--was not uncommunicative, but knew "less than you might
expect" about her. Aunt M'riar cultivated this good woman with an eye to
information, holding her up--as the phrase is now--at the stairfoot and
inveigling her to tea and gossip. She was a garrulous party when you
come to know her, was Mrs. Burr; and indeed, short of intimacy, she
might have produced the same impression on any person well within
hearing.

"Times and again," said she in the course of one such conversation,
which had turned on the mystery of Mrs. Prichard's antecedents, "have I
thought she was going to let on about her belongings, and never so much
as a word! Times and again have I felt my tongue in the roof of my
mouth, for curiosity to think what she would say next. And there, will
you believe me, missis?--it was no better than so much silence all said
and done! Nor it wasn't for want of words, like one sits meanin' a great
deal and when it comes to the describin' of it just nowhere! She was by
way of keeping something back, and there was I sat waiting for it, and
guess-working round like, speculating, you might say, to think what it
might be when it come. Thank you, ma'am--not another cup!"

"There's more in the pot, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar, looking into it to
see, near the paraffin lamp which smelt: they all did in those days. But
Mrs. Burr had had three; and three does, mostly. If these excellent
women's little inflections of speech, introduced thus casually, are
puzzling, please supply inverted commas. Aunt M'riar organized the
tea-tray to take away and wash up at the sink, after emptying
saucer-superfluities into the slop-basin. Mrs. Burr referred to the
advantages we enjoy as compared with our forbears, instancing especially
our exemption from the worship of wooden images, Egyptian Idles--a
spelling accommodated to meet an impress