“Ay, well, she never come past doorstep, as I said.... She just hung about, looking on. She’s brass of her own, you’ll think on, and more time on her hands than most.... She’d come sauntering down t’ road, as if she was looking for summat, and stop at the door and peer in; and as soon as she’d catched sight o’ the poor brats, she’d stand and stare at ’em with her queer smile. They got that upset about it they’d hardly bring ’emselves to go out, and they’d wake in the night, and swear she was in t’ room! Tibbie got that desperate about it at last that she took t’ bull by t’ horns, and took ’em along to Emma’s to tea. She thought happen they’d all on ’em be more sensible-like after that, let alone as Emma was Stephen’s mother and owed attention an’ all. But it didn’t work out as she thought, not by a deal. You never see anything like the three on ’em when they come back! The babies had cried ’emselves sick, and Tibbie was white as a sheet. And after we’d sat alongside of ’em for the best part of a couple of hours, and come down agen to the fire—‘Mother,’ Tibbie says sudden-like, breaking out, ‘it’s no use! We’ve got to go.’” “And she’s never been since....” Mrs. Tanner was still staring at the sunlight through the open door. “Nay, and won’t, neither, as long as she’s breath in her to say no! Such letters as she wrote me after she got back!... I’ve still got ’em upstairs. They were that fierce they’d have set t’ house afire if I’d shaped to put ’em in t’ grate!” ... Tibbie’s mother gave her jolly laugh for the first time since the solemn interval, and the rhythmic rubbing began again. “Ay, well, she’s well enough where she is,” she went on placidly. “She’s a good business and a sight o’ friends. The folks next door—Rawlinson’s what they’re called—think the world an’ all o’ my Tibbie.... Nay, she wouldn’t come agen whatever I did, though I axed her ever so often. She was right keen on me going to her instead, but I didn’t fancy a new spot. I’d summat in my eye at home an’ all,” she finished, chuckling; “and you know what that is as well as me!” Mrs. Tanner turned herself round now, and chuckled, too. The shadow which had lain for a while over the pair of them—the shadow of something they could not understand—dispersed again in the sun of the coming pleasure. Both their faces and their voices lightened now that a safe return had been made to the joyful subject. “I don’t know when I didn’t know it, come to that! We all on us knew you’d set your heart on that house.” “Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham defended herself happily. “There’s a deal o’ things folks want as is a long sight worse.” “Nay, you’d every right,” Mrs. Tanner concurred, with distinct affection in her tone.... “They say everybody has a dream o’ some sort,” she added thoughtfully, “and that, if they nobbut hold to it fast enough, it’s sure to come true.”