“Did she though?” cried she defiantly, her thin, delicately pretty face lighting up with a flame that gave it a momentary brilliancy of colouring. “And ’ose fault was it as father was drunk? It weren’t my earnin’s nor his’n neither as ’e spent on it, for ’e didn’t cash the paper till arter! It be them nasty do-nothin’s at the road-corners as tempts ’im and treats ’im, for the fun of ’earin’ ’im go on a bit merry, that’s what it be—and it be a burnin’ shame, it be!” They had reached the top of the hill, and Mrs. Wood set the basket down on the flags just outside the doctor’s surgery. There were loiterers even now at the corner of the churchyard that was the centre of the village square, and she had raised her voice with the last words, and they had smiled. She took the corner of her apron and wiped her mouth, that was quivering a little. “There, never you mind, you go ’long ’ome, dear,” said she softly, as though she were half-ashamed. “It ain’t ’cos father ’as ’is drop as Miss ’Earn’s so set agin me, noways.” “Why be it then, mother?” asked the little maid with natural curiosity. “She do seem to owe you some grudge, she do. And folks all callin’ of ’er so pious and Christian-like.” “Never you mind,” repeated the mother again. “Them pious folk is allers the ones to be down on their neighbours.” And she stooped and lifted the basket to the child’s head. “Can ye manage it?” said she, “or shall I come to the corner with ye?” “No, it be all right,” declared Sue, though she staggered a minute at first. And lifting a tiny arm to the load to steady it, she set off down the street towards where the cottages stood so close to the hill’s edge that one might have jumped off straight into the waste of blue mist below that was marsh-land and river unrolling to the sea. Mrs. Wood watched her a minute to see that she was safe, and then she turned her back on the loiterers and went on towards the post-office. One lad called out a greeting to her and asked who her mate was with, but she paid no heed though the others laughed. She shook her spare shoulders as she walked with a way that she had, and drew her spare little black jacket around her and held her little head, that had once been so pretty, well up, so that the thin nose was tilted, sniffing the cool air, and any one who knew her could have told that the next person she met would “catch it.” The loiterers knew it, and laughed as they saw who the next person would be. For it was her own man who came lounging across the churchyard. He was a great, hulking fellow who looked as though he could have taken the frail little body in one great hand and crushed it to death, yet the woman showed no fear of him. She just stood where she was and waited for him to reach the gate and come through to her, and though the laughter went on at the corner by which he must pass, and she knew very well what the joke was, she was nowise daunted nor even seemed to notice it.