Thinking about the letter to Tibbie, she did not notice the deep flush which came into Emma’s face, creeping all over it from the roots of her dark hair to the collarband on her short neck. Her voice, however, reached her calmly and unemotionally. “Ay, she’ll think it a rare piece o’ news, I don’t doubt. Likely she’ll feel, same as me, as it’s time you gave up your job. But think on about letter to the Committee, while you’re about it. T’other to Stephen’s wife can wait.” “Ay, I’ll think on!” Mrs. Clapham pulled a wry face, sighed, and then laughed. She moved on again, sailing with her air of a great ship towards the kitchen door, but spoiling the effect by kicking the dresser as she passed. “Eh, now, if I’m not clumsy!” she laughed ruefully, over her shoulder. “Likely you’re right, and I’m getting blind or a bit daft!” At last she was on the landing again, with her hand reached to the outside latch, and Emma—who seemed not so much to have moved as simply to have faded from one spot to another—a yard or two behind. And as they paused before speaking their final words, friends to all outward seeming and yet enemies to the bone, the single note of a bell was struck from the church-tower. Instantly Emma crumpled sideways against the wall, her face twisted, her eyes wide. “Passing-bell!” she contrived to get out in a choked voice. Mrs. Clapham’s own heart gave a violent jump, and she threw up the latch quickly and opened the door. The next moment she broke into a relieved laugh as the bells crashed into a peal of joy. “Passing-bell!” she jeered kindly at the disgruntled Emma. “What, them there’s Miss Marigold’s wedding-bells, that’s all! She’s getting herself wed in London to-day, if you’ll think on.... Ay, and look ye! They’re gettin’ t’ flag up on t’ tower an’ all!” The bells thundered and pealed as she went slowly down the steps, looking up at the bright flag above the clean grey stone of the tower. An extraordinary sense of happiness seized upon her as she came out again into the sunny day. It seemed to her at that moment that it was for her and not for Miss Marigold that the flag had been run up; that it was of her happiness and enrichment the bells were telling their tale.... “I never could abide t’ death-bell!” Emma was explaining smoothly, upright and composed again, from the shadow behind. “Likely I had a fright along of it when I was a child. I’ve felt a deal worse about it an’ all since my poor lad was killed in France.” “Come to that, it give me a bit of a turn myself!” Mrs. Clapham laughed, descending the last step. “I don’t know as I’d ha’ liked to hear t’ death-bell to-day. It’d ha’ seemed for all the world as if it was bringing me bad luck!”