The doctor had advised, and the neighbours too, that Bettesworth himself should not accompany his wife. But now the niece Liz, being unwell, was afraid to be alone with what looked a dying woman, and at the last moment Bettesworth jumped into the cab. As it started, the old woman's head fell back, her mouth dropped open. A pause was made at the public-house, to get brandy for her, which, however, she could not, or would not, take. Gin was tried, and she just touched it. Liz took the brandy; Bettesworth and the driver shared a pint of beer; then they drove off again. Once, on the way, Liz said, "Uncle, she's gone! Hadn't ye better stop the fly?" But he put his head down against her cheek, and found that she was still living; and so they came to the outer entrance of the infirmary. Further than that Bettesworth was dissuaded from going: it was not well that his wife should be agitated by the sight of him at the very gates; and accordingly he came away. So he is alone in his cottage, and may rest if he can. He is to have meals at his niece's, but will sleep at home. The kindness is touching to him, not alone of the nephew and niece, but of his neighbours generally. "Kate said she'd ha' went down in the fly, if I'd ha' let her know in time. An' she'd wash for me--if I'd take anything I wanted along to her Monday or Tuesday, she'd wash it. I says to her, 'You be the first friend I got, Kate.' Well, Liz had told me she _couldn't_ undertake it. She was forced to get somebody to do her own, and the doctor come to see her one day expectin' to find her in bed, and she was gettin' the dinner. There's Jack" (her husband) "and four boys.... So Kate's goin' to do the washin' for me, and she and her daughter's goin' one day to give the place a scrub out. More'n that she _can't_ do--with eight little 'uns, and then look at the washin'!" For Mrs. Eggar takes in washing, to eke out her husband's fifteen or sixteen shillings a week. Besides these friends, there are those who are willing to find the old man a home, "if anything should happen to the old gal." "'Tis a sort o' comfortin'," he says, "to think what good neighbours I got;" but he hopes not to break up his home yet. In an unconscious symbolism of his affection for all the home things he bought this afternoon a pennyworth of milk for the cat, who came running to meet him on his return to the lonely cottage, and then ran upstairs "to see if the old gal was there." He will keep his home together if he may, with warm feelings towards his neighbours. "But as for these up here," and he points contemptuously in the direction of the old woman's relatives, "I dunno if they knows she's gone, and I shan't trouble to tell 'em." [So I wrote on the Saturday evening. Four clear days pass, without any note about Bettesworth; then on the following Thursday the narrative is reopened. It is given here, unaltered.] _September 29._--Bettesworth's wife died at the workhouse infirmary, about midnight of the 27th.