"Well, my good friend, I was going to tell you. The way that Father Banger got into the house again to steal the poor old lady’s money, for building a school or some such villany. He knowed how fond the poor soul was of cats, so he borrowed a cat somewhere, and he got two boys to let it down the area with a whipcord round its stomach, and to jerk, jerk, jerk away at it, and the poor thing did squeal sure enough. ’Pain, Patty,’ says my poor mistress, and she could hardly speak--’Oh, Patty, there’s some cruel Englishman torturing a cat again.’ So out I runs into the area, and in pops Father Banger, who had his back to the wall, with a great sheet of paper; and he begins to make a list of all the things in the house. I took the cat to dear Miss Minto, and how pleased she was! ’Please God,’ says she, ’to let me live a few days more till I make a Catholic of this poor heretic’--she always converted her cats the first thing--’and then it shall have a stool and a good annuity.’ But next day the poor thing went." Little Mrs. Shelfer had so great a fear of death, that like some ancient nations she shunned all mention of his name, by euphemistic periphrase. She had never known real illness, and even a stitch or a spasm would frighten her for days. When I spoke calmly, as I sometimes did, of our great inevitable friend, whom we so labour to estrange, up would jump Mrs. Shelfer with a shudder and a little scream. "Oh don’t, my good soul, oh don’t! How can you? Let us live, Miss Valence, let us live while we can, and not think of such dreadful things. You make my blood run cold." "But, Mrs. Shelfer, surely you know that we all must die." "Of course, my good friend, of course. But then you needn’t remind one of it. I met Doctor Franks to-day, and he said, ’Why, Mrs. Shelfer, I do declare, you look younger than ever,’ and a very clever man he is, yes, yes; and not a gray hair in my head, and my father lived to eighty-eight." "And how old are you, Mrs. Shelfer, now?" "Oh I am sure I don’t know, Miss Valence, I don’t keep no account. Let us talk of something else. Did you hear what Tom did to your Judy to-day?" Ah, poor little thing! But I am not going to moralise. Shall I ever know the history of that marrow bone?[#] [#] I have now ascertained that a roving dog popped in and away with the marrow bone, sovereigns, guineas, and all.--C.V. 1864. CHAPTER XIII. Tossil’s Barton, estimating the British Post by the standard of Joe Queen’s boy, placed but little confidence in that institution. Moreover, Tossil’s Barton held that a "papper scrawl," as it termed a letter, was certain to be lost for want of size, unless it were secured in something large, "something as a man can zee and hold on to," as the farmer himself expressed it.