Mrs. Fettley had spoken very precisely for some time without interruption, before she wiped her eyes. “And,” she concluded, “they read ’is death-notice to me, out o’ the paper last month. O’ course it wadn’t any o’ _my_ becomin’ concerns--let be I ’adn’t set eyes on him for so long. O’ course _I_ couldn’t say nor show nothin’. Nor I’ve no rightful call to go to Eastbourne to see ’is grave, either. I’ve been schemin’ to slip over there by the ’bus some day; but they’d ask questions at ’ome past endurance. So I ’aven’t even _that_ to stay me.” “But you’ve ’ad your satisfactions?” “Godd! Yess! Those four years ’e was workin’ on the rail near us. An’ the other drivers they gave him a brave funeral, too.” “Then you’ve naught to cast-up about. ’Nother cup o’ tea?” * * * * * The light and air had changed a little with the sun’s descent, and the two elderly ladies closed the kitchen-door against chill. A couple of jays squealed and skirmished through the undraped apple-trees in the garden. This time, the word was with Mrs. Ashcroft, her elbows on the tea-table, and her sick leg propped on a stool.... “Well I never! But what did your ’usband say to that?” Mrs. Fettley asked, when the deep-toned recital halted. “’E said I might go where I pleased for all of ’im. But seein’ ’e was bedrid, I said I’d ’tend ’im out. ’E knowed I wouldn’t take no advantage of ’im in that state. ’E lasted eight or nine week. Then he was took with a seizure-like; an’ laid stone-still for days. Then ’e propped ’imself up abed an’ says: ‘You pray no man’ll ever deal with you like you’ve dealed with some.’ ‘An’ you?’ I says, for _you_ know, Liz, what a rover ’e was. ‘It cuts both ways,’ says ’e, ‘but _I_’m death-wise, an’ I can see what’s comin’ to you.” He died a-Sunday an’ was buried a-Thursday.... An’ yet I’d set a heap by him--one time or--did I ever?” “You never told me that before,” Mrs. Fettley ventured. “I’m payin’ ye for what ye told me just now. Him bein’ dead, I wrote up, sayin’ I was free for good, to that Mrs. Marshall in Lunnon--which gave me my first place as kitchen-maid--Lord, how long ago! She was well pleased, for they two was both gettin’ on, an’ I knowed their ways. You remember, Liz, I used to go to ’em in service between whiles, for years--when we wanted money, or--or my ’usband was away--on occasion.” “’E _did_ get that six months at Chichester, didn’t ’e?” Mrs. Fettley whispered. “We never rightly won to the bottom of it.” “’E’d ha’ got more, but the man didn’t die.” “’None o’ your doin’s, was it, Gra’?” “No! ’Twas the woman’s husband this time. An’ so, my man bein’ dead, I went back to them Marshall’s, as cook, to get me legs under a gentleman’s table again, and be called with a handle to me name. That was the year you shifted to Portsmouth.” “Cosham,” Mrs. Fettley corrected. “There was a middlin’ lot o’ new buildin’ bein’ done there. My man went first, an’ got the room, an’ I follered.”