“And so your ma--Miss Slazenger as she were then--signed there, did she, miss?” indicating the rudely formed letters in which a hand accustomed only to the German character had inscribed an unfamiliar name. “Mrs Cotton she took to her wonderful, just the same as to Miss Garland. It do seem a pity as you shouldn’t have come before she left the parish, after all the many times she have said to me, ‘Mrs Clegg,’ says she, ‘I would give a deal to know what become of Mr and Mrs Bertram after all, that I would.’” “Then Mrs Cotton is not dead?” asked Maimie eagerly. “Why, whatever give you that hidea, miss? The Vicar ’ad a stroke and give up the parish, and they lives down at Whitcliffe now. This last summer as ever was, they arsk Clegg and me down for the day, and took us for a ride in a carriage, and give us tea in the garden, just like ladies and gentlemen--though if you arsk me, I say give me an ’ouse, or even a harbour, the grass bein’ damp and spiders about.” “Could you give me Mrs Cotton’s direction?” “To be sure I could, miss--Windicotes, Cavendish Road, Whitcliffe-on-Sea. But, miss, if you’re lookin’ for witnesses to swear to that there weddin’, don’t you forget that me and Clegg was there just as much as Mrs Cotton and the Vicar, him givin’ the bride away and me ready with a bottle of salts in case of the ladies’ bein’ overcome. Why, Mrs Cotton she says to me herself that morning, ‘Mrs Clegg,’ says she, ‘don’t you let your Tommy go to school to-day, and I’ll make it up to him’; and if she didn’t set him to play marbles just outside the churchyard gate, sayin’ that if he saw a cab drive up, or so much as any strangers comin’ along, he was to run in and whisper to her at once, ‘and then, Mrs Clegg,’ says she, ‘you and me will fasten the church-door and pile the forms against it until Mr Cotton have finished the service, sooner nor let those dear young people be separated before they’re properly married, for it’s in my mind as Mr Bertram’s cruel relations will try to part ’em at the last.’ And I was that worked up with the thought of Miss Garland bein’ dragged off shriekin’ to one of them convents, and that nice young gentleman her ’usband--for a fine military-lookin’ gentleman he was, though a trifle ’aughty in speakin’--throwed into chains and a dungeon, that I ’id my broom be’ind the church-door, and I was ready to fight for ’em, I was. Not that anythink come of it, after all.” Mrs Clegg spoke with evident disappointment. “I’ll remember,” said Maimie. “But don’t tell any one that I’ve been here, any way.” She folded up the certificate and placed it in her pocket-book, gave the clerk his fee, and prepared to go. “The cruel relations may show up yet, you know.”