The cousin brought us the news. But I had a visit the same day from the sister-in-law, the paragon of virtue, a thin, sharp-faced woman of middle age. I said what I could in sympathy, telling her how much we missed Trimmer, how well we should always remember her. But this was not what she had come to hear. She let me get through. She drew the sigh appropriate for the occasion. Then she settled down to business. When did I propose to pay back the money Trimmer had spent on the doctor in Camden Town? I didn't propose to at all, I told her: he was a miserable quack and I had done my best to keep Trimmer from going to him; besides, fortunately for her, she was beyond the reach of money that was not owing to her. The sister-in-law was indignant. The family always understood I had promised, a promise was a promise, and now they depended on me for the funeral. I reminded her of the society to which Trimmer had subscribed solely to meet that expense. But she quickly let me know that the funeral the society proposed to provide fell far short of the family's standard. To them it appeared scarcely better than a pauper's. The coffin would be plain, there would be no oak and brass handles,--worse, there would be no plumes for the horses and the hearse. To send their sister to her grave without plumes would disgrace them before their neighbours. Nor would there be a penny over for the family mourning,--could I allow them, the chief mourners, to mourn without crape? I remembered their willingness to let Trimmer die as a pauper in the workhouse. After all, she would have the funeral she had provided for. She would lie no easier in her grave for oak and brass handles, for plumes and crape. Her family had made use of her all her life; I did not see why I should help them to make use of her after her death, that their grief might be trumpeted in Brixton and Camden Town. I brought the interview to an end. But sometimes I wonder if Trimmer would not have liked it better if I had helped them, if plumes had waved from the heads of the horses that drew her to her grave, if her family had followed swathed in crape. She would have looked upon it as another piece of her extraordinary good luck if, by dying, she had been of service to anybody. I do not know where they buried her. Probably nobody save ourselves to-day has as much as a thought for her. But, if self-sacrifice counts for anything, if martyrdom is a passport to heaven, then Trimmer should take her place up there by the side of St. Francis of Assisi, and Joan of Arc, and St. Vincent de Paul, and all those other blessed men and women whose lives were given for others, and who thought it was "bonny." _Louise_ [Illustration: "TUMBLED, WEATHER-WORN, RED-TILED ROOFS"] III LOUISE