or daughter--as might turn
out--of her granddaughter, Maisie Costrell, the only daughter of Widow
Thrale. For this young woman had ordained that "Granny" should officiate
as high-priestess on this occasion, and we know it is just as well to
give way to ladies under such circumstances.

So when Dave and Sister Nora were deposited by the coach at Strides
Cottage, it was Widow Thrale who received them. She did not produce on
the lady the effect of a _bona-fide_ widow of fifty-five--this
description had been given of her--not so much because of the
non-viduity of her costume, for that was temperate and negative, as
because Time seemed to have let his ravages stand over for the present.
Very few casual observers would have guessed that she was over
forty-five. Ruth Thrale--that was her name in full--had two sons
surviving of her own family, both at sea, and one daughter, Maisie
Costrell aforesaid. So she was practically now without incumbrances, and
terribly wanting some to kiss, had hit upon the expedient of taking
charge of invalid children and fostering them up to kissing-point. They
were often poor, wasted little articles enough at the first go off, but
Mrs. Ruth usually succeeded in making them succulent in a month or so.
It was exasperating, though, to have them go away just as they were
beginning to pay for fattening. The case was analogous to that of an
ogress balked of her meal, after going to no end of expense in humanised
cream and such-like.

All the ogress rose in her heart when she saw our little friend Dave
Wardle. But she was very careful about his stiff leg. Her eyes gleamed
at the opportunities he would present for injudicious overfeeding--or
suppose we say stuffing at once and have done with it. A banquet was
ready prepared for him, to which he was adapted in a chair of suitable
height, and which he began absorbing into his system without apparently
registering any date of completion. You must not imagine he had been
stinted of food on the journey: indeed, he may be said to have been
taking refreshment more or less all the way from London. But he was one
of the sort that can go steadily on, converting helpings into small boy,
apparently without intermediate scientific events--gastric juice and
blood-corpuscles, and so forth. He was able to converse affably the
while, accepting suggestions as to method in the spirit in which they
were given. In reporting his remarks the spelling cannot be too
phonetical;