"Don't worry, dear. They are quite harmless. Come and lie down, and I'll bring you something to wash out your mouth," said Nellie; and she carried off the old lady. While George, always ready to play emergency-man, rushed into the kitchen, acquainted Kezia with what had happened owing to her gross carelessness in putting away the honey pot with the lid off, and ordered her to despatch a telegram to the doctor. Then he went into the parlour and observed consolingly: "People can live a long time with bullets inside them. Wasps can't be worse, especially as they must be digestible." "I am afraid of the stinging parts," said Nellie. "Perhaps they are worn off," he replied. Miss Yard lay upon the sofa breathing peacefully, thankful she had made her will, but looking wonderfully healthy. She complained, however, of drowsiness, whereupon Bessie, who had rushed across the road at the first alarm, and was then standing in the parlour armed with the brandy bottle and blue bag, exclaimed incautiously, "That shows they'm stinging her. Robert ses his father wur bit by a viper, and he drank a bottle of brandy and lay unconscious vor twenty-four hours." "Was it really a viper?" groaned the sufferer. "I don't think they will do her any harm," said George. "In some countries the people live on frogs and slugs." "And St. John the Baptist always had grasshoppers with his honey," added Bessie reverently. "And Germans eat worms, and thrive on 'em," George concluded. Kezia was crying in the hall, declaring that the jury would bring it in manslaughter. Being called upon by Bessie to make some valedictory remark to the poor lady, she approached, and blubbered out: "Mrs. Cann ses, miss, you ain't to worry. She can't hardly open her mouth in the post office without swallowing something; and one evening, miss, taking her supper in the dark, she ate a beetle; and there's more good food about than us knows of, she ses; and it 'twas all cooked, miss, and if it warn't vor the look of such things, we might live a lot more cheaply than we do; vor she ses, miss, 'tis horrible to think what ducks eat, but there's nothing tastier than a duckling, 'cept it be a nice bit of young pork; and she ses, miss, she saw a pig of hers eat a viper--" "There's nothing here about internal wasp stings," broke in Nellie, who had been consulting a book of household remedies. "I can't think how it got into the house," Miss Yard was moaning, with her eyes fixed upon vacancy. "It seems wonderful that it should have run down my throat when I wasn't looking." "Are you in any pain, dear?" asked Nellie. "No," replied Miss Yard in a disappointed voice. "They'm always like that," wept Kezia. "My poor missus was wonderful well the morning she wur took." "I'm going away too," said the invalid. "Will you find me a train, George?" "Where to?" asked the obliging nephew. "The place where Nellie and I came from. I don't know what they used to call it."