"I never heard tell you were badly," she persisted, fixing her eyes on Sarah’s face, which looked like parchment against the misty pane, "and surely to goodness I’d be more like to know than Will?" "I’ll do, thank ye. I’m right enough," Sarah said stiffly, forced into speech at last; and Eliza laughed victoriously and returned to her food with zest. "You’ve always been rarely strong, as far as I can think on. I never heard tell as you ailed anything in your life. You were always a rare hand wi’ a knife and fork an’ all!" she finished, laughing again. "Will’s a bonny fool to go scaring folk wi’ such-like tales." "Yes, but we _did_ go to the doctor’s!" May broke out warmly, goaded into speech. "Mrs. Thornthwaite’s bothered with her eyes." Mrs. Will lifted her own sharply for a fresh stare at the defenceless face. "Eh, now, you don’t say so!" she exclaimed cheerfully, with a quite uninterested air. "It’s bad hearing, is that, but they look right enough, I’m sure." "They’re bad, all the same!" May answered indignantly, on the verge of tears. "Doctor says she ought to have an operation right off." There was a little pause after the dread word operation, poignant in every class, but especially so in this. Even Mrs. Will was shocked momentarily into quiet. Her fork stayed arrested in mid-air, half-way to her mouth. "Well, I never!" she observed at last, withdrawing her startled gaze. "Eh, now, I never did!" She set to work again at her food like a machine that has been stopped for a second by an outside hand. "I don’t hold much by operations myself," she went on presently, growing fluent again. "I doubt they’re never no use. They’re luxuries for rich folk, anyway, seems to me, same as servants and motor-cars and the like. But you’ll likely be asking somebody for a hospital ticket, so as you needn’t pay?" "Nay, I think not," Sarah said calmly, though her hands gripped each other in her threadbare lap. "You’ll never go wasting your own brass on a job like yon!" "Nay, nor that, neither." "You’ll borrow it, likely?" A slyness came into her voice. She peered at Sarah over her cup. "Nay." "Ay, well, no matter where it come from, it would nobbut be money thrown away. You’re an old body now, Sarah, and folk don’t mend that much when they get to your age. It’s real lucky you’ve only that small spot, as I said, and neither chick nor child to fret after you when you’ve gone." Sarah stood up suddenly when she said that, trying to focus her eyes on Eliza’s face. She stood very stiff and straight, as if she were all of one piece from feet to crown. A sudden notion came to May that, if she had thrown off the shabby black cloak, a column of fierce flame would have shot up towards the roof.... "I’ll be saying good day, Eliza," was all she said, however, and moved, but stopped because the other’s skirts still lay before her feet. Mrs. Will leaned back in her chair, looking up at her, and smiled.