"What is ut?" asked Tony. "Why, 'tis li'l Rosie!" "Wer did 'ee get 'en?" he continued more softly. "Yu an't had 'en give'd 'ee?" "Give'd me? No! Thic cheap-jack.... But 'tisn' bad, is it?" "What cheap-jack?" "Why, thic man to the market-house--wer I got the cruet." "O-oh! I didn' never see he.... What did 'ee pay 'en for thic then?" "Never yu mind. 'Twasn't none o' yours what I paid. What do 'ee think o'it?" "'Tisn' bad--very nice," remarked Tony, bending before the picture, examining it in all lights. "Iss; 'tisn' bad by no means. Come yer, Jimmy an' Tommy. Do 'ee know who that ther is?" "Rosie!" whispered Jimmy. "What was took up to cementry," added Tommy in a brighter voice. "Iss, 'tis our li'l Rosie to the life (mustn' touch), jest like her was." A moment's tension; then, "A surprise for 'ee, en' it?" Mrs Widger enquired. "My ol' geyser!" The children's riot began again. "Our Rosie...." they were saying. Mam 'Idger, slipping out of Tony's grasp, carried the picture off to the front room. She was sometime gone. Wordsworth's _We are Seven_ came into my mind: "But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!" 'Twas throwing words away; for still The little maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven!" I knew, of course, intellectually, that the poem records more than a child's mere fancy; but never before have I felt its truth, have I been caught up, so to speak, into the atmosphere of the wise, simple souls who are able to rob death of the worst of its sting by refusing to let the dead die altogether, even on earth. Rosie is dead and buried. I perceive also--I perceived, while Tony and the children stood round that picture--that Rosie is still here, in this house, hallowing it a little. The one statement is as much a fact as the other; but how much more delicately intangible, and perhaps how much truer, the second. 11 [Sidenote: _ROSIE'S DEATH_]