She went straight to the weeping woman, and stood beside her at the table, now laying a soft little touch on a flung-out arm, now patting and soothing and smoothing the bent head. Her actions, light and neat as those of a wren, worried Mrs. Clapham no more than if they had been the hoppings of the bird itself. They gave her, indeed, something of the same feeling of friendly warmth, of unasking companionship, of brisk life that knew nothing of death; and presently, as she wept and wept, crying aloud on her dead child, turning to stare at the chair that was Tibbie, and yet emphatically was _not_—she had the impression that a bird was actually in the room. Even the little sympathetic sounds which Mrs. Tanner uttered from time to time seemed to her almost like twitters and chirps from some delicate feathered throat. “My Tibbie! My little lass!...” The sleeves of the black gown were soaked through and through with tears, as well as the white front which Tibbie had fashioned with such pride. “Poor mother—poor soul!” Mrs. Tanner, as she chirped, was gently undoing the strings of the old woman’s bonnet, pulling out the pin that was supposed to be holding it in place, and setting both of them on a side-table. The bonnet would do well enough for the funeral, she was saying to herself, and so would the black gown, with a bit of _crêpe_ for that touch of white.... “I can’t believe it.... ’Tisn’t likely! ’Tain’t true.... My bonny Tibbie!” “Poor soul! Poor dear!” “What ha’ they gone and done to her? What’s been wrong? What ha’ they done to her when I wasn’t there?” “Poor dear! Poor soul!” Mrs. Tanner, still giving her little chirps, hunted until she found the clean linen handkerchief with which Mrs. Clapham had completed her toilet that morning, and began to dab gently at the sleeves and the white front. She dabbed, too, at the quivering face down which the tears streamed as if all the tears that mothers have ever shed were being poured at once from that single fount. There were patches of dust, she noticed, on the charwoman’s gown, and dust on her hands which her tears were turning to grime. Her skirt was pulled all awry, and her bonnet had been askew; and, remembering how she had looked in the morning, Mrs. Tanner was struck to the heart. Presently she too was crying as she stroked and dabbed, though with light, twittering sounds that were still rather birdlike in effect.