tive service elsewhere. It
was entirely his own fault, or his employer's, that he stood bolt
upright, raising one hand up and down in time with the movement of the
wheels. The miller did not seem to mind; for he only kept on looking out
of window, smoking.

But the miller and the carman were not the only portraitures this model
showed. Two very little girls were watching the rising grain-sacks, each
with her arm round the other. The miller may have been looking at them
affectionately from the window; but really he was so very
unimpressive--quite inscrutable! Dave inquired about these little girls,
after professing a satisfaction he only partly felt about the
arrangements for receiving the raw material and delivering it ground.

"Whoy was they bofe of a size?" said he, for indeed they were exactly
alike.

"Because, my dear, that is the size God made them. Both at the same
time!"

"Who worze they?" asked Dave, clinching the matter abruptly--much too
interested for circumlocution.

"Myself, my dear, and my little sister, born the same time. With our
lilac frocks on and white bonnets to shade the sun off our eyes. And
each a nosegay of garden flowers." There was no more sorrow in the old
woman's voice than belongs to any old voice speaking thoughtfully and
gently. Her old hand caressed the crisp locks of the little, interested
boy, and felt his chin appreciatively, as she added:--"Three or four
years older than yourself, my dear! Seventy years ago!" with just the
ring of sadness--no more--that always sounds when great age speaks of
its days long past.

The other convalescent boy here struck in, raising a vital question.
"Which is you, and which is her?" said he. He had come in as a new
spectator; surrendering Dave's crutch, borrowed as needless to its
owner, in compliance with a strange fascination, now waning in charm as
the working model asserted its powers. Dionysos had deserted Ariadne
again.

"This is me," said Granny Marrable. "And this is Maisie." And now you
who read probably know, as clearly as he who writes, who she was, this
octogenarian with such a good prospect of making up the hundred. She was
Phoebe, the sister of old Mrs. Prichard, whose story was told in the
last chapter. But most likely you guessed that pages ago.

* * * * *

I, who write, have no aim in telling this story beyond that of repeating
as clearly and briefly as may be the bare facts that make it up--of