“Oh, he’d be sure to know, one of these days. We see a great deal of that—the way things come out,” said Mrs Bowerbank, whose view of life seemed to abound in cheerless contingencies. “You must remember that it is her dying wish, and that you may have it on your conscience.” “That’s a thing I _never_ could abide!” the little dressmaker exclaimed, with great emphasis and a visible shiver; after which she picked up various scattered remnants of muslin and cut paper and began to roll them together with a desperate and mechanical haste. “It’s quite awful, to know what to do—if you are very sure she _is_ dying.” “Do you mean she’s shamming? we have plenty of that—but we know how to treat ’em.” “Lord, I suppose so,” murmured Miss Pynsent; while her visitor went on to say that the unfortunate person on whose behalf she had undertaken this solemn pilgrimage might live a week and might live a fortnight, but if she lived a month, would violate (as Mrs Bowerbank might express herself) every established law of nature, being reduced to skin and bone, with nothing left of her but the main desire to see her child. “If you’re afraid of her talking, it isn’t much she’d be able to say. And we shouldn’t allow you more than about eight minutes,” Mrs Bowerbank pursued, in a tone that seemed to refer itself to an iron discipline. “I’m sure I shouldn’t want more; that would be enough to last me many a year,” said Miss Pynsent, accommodatingly. And then she added, with another illumination, “Don’t you think he might throw it up against me that I _did_ take him? People might tell him about her in later years; but if he hadn’t seen her he wouldn’t be obliged to believe them.” Mrs Bowerbank considered this a moment, as if it were rather a super-subtle argument, and then answered, quite in the spirit of her official pessimism, “There is one thing you may be sure of: whatever you decide to do, as soon as ever he grows up he will make you wish you had done the opposite.” Mrs Bowerbank called it oppo_site_. “Oh, dear, then, I’m glad it will be a long time.” “It will be ever so long, if once he gets it into his head! At any rate, you must do as you think best. Only, if you come, you mustn’t come when it’s all over.” “It’s too impossible to decide.” “It is, indeed,” said Mrs Bowerbank, with superior consistency. And she seemed more placidly grim than ever when she remarked, gathering up her loosened shawl, that she was much obliged to Miss Pynsent for her civility, and had been quite freshened up: her visit had so completely deprived her hostess of that sort of calm. Miss Pynsent gave the fullest expression to her perplexity in the supreme exclamation— “If you could only wait and see the child, I’m sure it would help you to judge!”