according to Jane Nettles. Beth believed she had been present upon the
occasion, in a grass-grown graveyard, by the wall of an old church,
beneath which steps led down into a vault. The stones of the steps
were mossy, and the sun was shining. There was a little group of
people standing round, with pale, set, solemn faces, and presently
something was brought up, and they all pressed forward to look at it.
Beth could not see what it was for the grown-up people, and never knew
whether or not the whole picture had been conjured up by her
imagination; but as there was always a foundation of fact in the
impressions of this period of her life, it is not improbable that she
really was present at the exhumation, with the curious and
indefatigable Jane Nettles.

Opposite the nursery window, on the other side of the road, was the
butcher's shop, in front of which the butcher made his shambles. Late
in the evening he brought out a board and set it on trestles, then he
brought a sheep, lifted it up by its legs and put it on its back on
the board, tied its feet, and cut its throat. Beth watched the
operation with grave interest, but no other feeling. She had been
accustomed to see it all her life.

Presently Beth's father and mother went out together, and then Beth
stole downstairs, and out to the wash-house to find the sweets in the
white rose-tree. Mildred and Jim were doing their lessons in the
dining-room, and she burst in upon them with the sweets; but Mildred
was cross, and said:

"Don't make such a noise, Beth, my head aches."

The next day was Sunday. Beth knew it by the big black bonnet which
played such a large part in her childish recollections. She had a kind
of sensation of having seen herself in it, bobbing along to church, a
sort of Kate Greenaway child, with a head out of all proportion to the
rest of her body, and feeling singularly satisfied--a feeling,
however, which was less a recollection than an experience continually
renewed, for a nice gown or bonnet was always a pleasure to her.

In church she sat in a big square pew on one side of the aisle, and on
the other side was another pew exactly like it, in which sat a young
lady whom Beth believed to be Miss Augusta Noble in the _Fairchild
Family_. Augusta Noble was very vain, and got burnt to death for
standing on tiptoe before the fire to look at herself in a new frock
in the mirror on the mantelpiece. Beth thought it a suitable end for
her, and did not pit