id
think she salted her hams too much; but, there! she be gone, poor
soul, and it wouldn't become me to speak ill of her ham now."

"Ah, my dear," groaned Mrs. Cross, pouring out a cupful of the
inky-looking fluid that had been stewing on the hob for the last hour
and a-half. "Ah, my dear, all flesh is grass, as we do know. She was a
dried-up-looking poor body, your sister-in-law; I al'ays did say so,
ye mid remember. An' how did ye leave poor John?"

"He was in floods," responded Mrs. Domeny, her eyes filling with
sympathetic tears. "In floods, I do assure 'ee. I did feel for en, I
can tell 'ee. 'Twas through me as they did first get to know each
other. 'Twas a very romantic marriage theirs was, Mrs. Cross; a real
romance me an' Robert al'ays did call it."

"Ah!" commented her neighbour, half sympathetically, half
interrogatively. She kicked the logs together with her flat shoe, drew
a chair close to her visitor's, filled her own cup, and sat down with
an expectant expression.

"'Ees, my dear, quite a romance, as you'll say when I've a-told 'ee.
When my sister Susannah was laid up wi' her ninth, which was a twin,
my dear, an' her husband out of work, and the other eight scarce able
to do a hand's turn for themselves, she wrote to me an' axed me to
come an' look after things a bit till she got about again. Well, I
couldn't say no, ye can understand, so Robert got Janie Domeny,
brother Tom's oldest girl, to come of a marnin' to see to en, an' I
did go to poor Susannah. Well, 'twas at Susannah's, if you'll believe
me," said Mrs. Domeny, with a solemnity which would have befitted the
announcement of an event of national importance, "as I first came
across poor Sarah."

"Well!" ejaculated Mrs. Cross, pausing with a large bite of bread and
butter distending her cheek, and uplifting her hands. "Well, to think
of it!"

"'Ees, as I often did say," resumed Mrs. Domeny, "it did seem from the
very beginnin' as though 'twas meant to be. She was a-livin' next door
to Susannah--hadn't long come, d'ye see, and didn't know any of the
neighbours to speak on. But she an' me took to each other fro' the
beginnin'. She were a staid women then, an' not over an' above
well-lookin'--nay, I can't say as she was. But she was dressed very
fayshionable an' nice, an' she was very pleasant to speak to, an' as
for me, you know I'm of a very affectionate disposition; 'tis my
natur' to cling, d'ye see. 'Ees, as I often do say to my 'usband, I a