"This girl. Stop, and I'll tell you!... But, really, the coincidence!" And, indeed, Mrs. Charlotte seems almost knocked silly by it, as the pugilists say. Marianne is roused and interested at her perplexity--sits up on the sofa fanning herself with her pocket-handkerchief--seems half inclined to laugh. "What's it all _about_, Charlotte?" she says, and then adds--a little passing tribute to the memory abruptly revived--"Poor Kate!" "Oh, my dear, of course it's nothing to do with poor Kate. Just an odd coincidence of a girl Mrs. Steptoe knew at Ramsgate, I think--years ago!" "Kate was at Ramsgate, though, when I was a child. She taught music to some people's children. What _was_ their name now?" But the name would not come back, on any terms. Marianne gave it up. Her friend felt actually glad, for the puzzle was too incisive to be pleasant. "Very likely she was at Ramsgate. Why not? But she hadn't been twice a widow when she married your Titus, at any rate. Come, Marianne!" "Certainly not! She wasn't nineteen, for one thing. Was this coincidence-lady a widow?" "Perhaps I had better tell you the story?" "Much better, I should say." On which Mrs. Eldridge repeats Mrs. Steptoe's tale, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance, but with a tendency--very common in narratives we pass on to others, but ourselves have no part in--to substitute descriptions or epithets for names. Thus the Mr. and Mrs. Hallock of the original narrative appeared as "this lady and gentleman" until Mrs. Challis, whose puzzled look was on the increase, asked a question about them: "What were they--this lady and gentleman? What was their name?" "I fancy he was a coal merchant or dealer in something. Mrs. Steptoe didn't say. The name was Hallock." Mrs. Challis sprang up from the sofa excitedly. "Charlotte!--_what_ did you say? Hallock?" "Yes--Hallock. Why not?" Marianne's breath is quite taken away. "But that is the name I had forgotten--Hallock," she says, as soon as she can speak. "They're in one of those photographs in the old book--the one I brought from mother's." Her speech is rapid and frightened. The strangeness of the story is getting its mastery, and she feels, without imaging them, the ambushes in wait for her. "Oh dear!" she gasps, sinking back again on the sofa, "all this--it's so odd! Charlotte, I'm afraid to look at the photograph." Charlotte's nerves are stronger, and she, recovered from the momentary alarm her friend had given her, is ready, one might say, to be in mischief again. "Don't be a goose, Marianne," she says. "You're frightened of everything. Do let's get the thing explained, dear, instead of going dotty over it. Which photograph book is it?... left-hand chiffonier?... no?--right-hand ... top shelf?... No!--I won't make a mess.... I expect it's this."