All the inhabitants of the place came hastening forth to inquire the reason of the outcry, and there beheld the relict of Private Griggs, with her yellow hair streaming over her shoulders, and her face alight with a very passion of rapture, trampling on her widow’s bonnet, and brokenly telling her baby that Daddy was coming home. Mrs. Frizzell rose to the emergency. Putting her arm round her daughter, she propelled her gently towards the house, without deigning to notice by word or look the importunate crowd. Presently she went out, closing the door after her, and repossessed herself of the obnoxious bonnet, which a thoughtful neighbour had rescued from the dust and set upon a gatepost. Before she could re-enter the house one or two anxious friends, who had been eagerly on the look-out for her from divers points of ambush, emerged from their respective doors. “Summat very strange must have happened, Mrs. Frizzell, I’m sure, to make Susan behave as she did just now,” one said. “Ah, I never did see nothing like it,” chimed in another. “I’ve seen a man as was a bit drinky-like throw off his hat and tread on it, but never a respectable young ’ooman, same as Mrs. Griggs.” “The poor thing didn’t know what she was a-doin’,” returned Mrs. Frizzell. “There, it be all so mixed up I do scarce know how to tell ye. We’ll know the right o’ things in a few days. It do seem now as if we’d ha’ made some mistake in thinkin’ Susie was a widow.” “Lard, now, you don’t say so? Weren’t Private Griggs killed, then, after all? Why, we did see’s name in papers.” “Them papers do make mistakes, though,” cried Mrs. Cross. “I did see oncet or twicet as they did say: ‘So-and-so, stated to be missin’, is now found to be dead,’ and t’other way round. This here be t’other way round, I suppose?” “’Ees,” groaned Mrs. Frizzell, passing her band wearily over her brow. It was very much the other way round; the whole world, as it seemed to her, had turned completely topsy-turvy. “Dear, I don’t wonder as poor Susan be half out of her mind. You don’t look so very well pleased yourself, my dear.” “I scarce do know what I feel. I scarce can think it be true. If it _bain’t_ true, what’s to become o’ Susan? As you do say, Mrs. Cross, she’s very near out o’ her mind now. And if it _be_ true—there, them as wrote did say as he were so terrible bad he were bound to be crippled for life.” “Crippled!” ejaculated both women together; and they looked at the mother aghast. “Then,” cried Mrs. Cross, “Susan ’ull have en to keep!” She exchanged a look of blank dismay with her companion; it was plain that in the eyes of both the calamity originally believed in—that of the honourable demise of Private Griggs—was regarded as a much less serious misfortune. “And when do ye think ye’ll be likely to know for certain, my dear?” insinuated Mrs. Cross, with her head on one side.