“Ay.” The charwoman’s lips trembled on the lip of the cup.... “My poor lass made her a pale-blue _crêpe de Chine_,” she said presently, as she had said to Emma, setting the cup down shakily on the edge of the saucer. “She was a rare hand with a needle, was your Tibbie!” Mrs. Tanner nodded. “I reckon them barns’ll have everything just so.” “Right as a trivet they’ll be from top to toe!” A touch of possessive pride came into the grandmother’s voice. “I’ll have my work cut out to keep ’em near as smart.” “Ay, well, it’s to be hoped they’ll take after their mother when it comes to brains. Not but what they said Poor Stephen was smart enough when he was in t’ Army.” “They’re sharp enough—as barns go,” Mrs. Clapham answered carelessly, but with the same underlying suggestion of pride. Mrs. Tanner’s words had called up a vision of coloured prizes and shining medals of quality applauding her grandchildren with elegant white-gloved hands.... “Folks never repent it afterwards as does the right thing,” Mrs. Tanner asserted cheerfully, if with an unconscious lack of truth. “They’ll live to be a comfort to you, you’ll see.” “Happen they will.” “It’s right queer your Tibbie should ha’ died on Miss Marigold’s wedding-day,” Mrs. Tanner mused. “Are you thinking o’ going to t’ Vicarage next week as afore?” “I reckon I shall.” “There’s that knee of yours, think on.” “It’ll be better by then.” “Ay, well, you’ll not do that much work, I’ll be bound!” Mrs. Tanner laughed. “Parson’s wife’ll be that throng telling you about t’ wedding!” Mrs. Clapham said nothing in reply to that, but suddenly she felt as if she would not be able to endure hearing about the wedding. Indeed, at that moment she felt as if she would not be able to endure going to the Vicarage at all. Suddenly she had remembered the conversation of the evening before, and how in the midst of her own excitement the Vicar’s wife had never once remembered the charwoman’s hopes. It was almost as if, after some mysterious fashion, she had known what was going to happen. “Next week, as usual, please!” she had said, as she went away; and in spite of the new life coming so near that she had actually touched it with a hand, it was going to be “next week as usual, please,” for Mrs. Clapham, after all. Mrs. Tanner, in the meantime, had passed on to another subject. “Yon Emma’s a real bad sort!” she shot out suddenly, and so fiercely that Mrs. Clapham felt as if she had received an actual peck. “Eh, but what an escape it’s been for them poor barns!” “Ay ... and yet I can’t help wondering, though, all the same....” Mrs. Clapham was still searching for that hypothetical sprout. “Wonder all t’ same what?” “Whether she mightn’t ha’ treated ’em decently, after all?” “Nay, now—you’re never thinking o’ going back on your word!” Mrs. Tanner pushed back her chair so sharply that it shrieked on the flag.