The squint-eyed woman was not so hard to manage. I talked to her as if she were some male friend of mine, only appealing to her womanliness with all the soft sadness I could press into the tones of my voice. In the end she was mollified, and even tender and motherly in her feelings toward the unfortunate family. I left on her dresser the half-crown I shrank from offering her, and, having reduced the comb-wearer also, I marched off, carrying the stewpot and the fragments of the ill-fated doe to the cottage of the widow, where George and the girls awaited me. The house was in a woeful state. In the rocking chair, beside the high guard that surrounded the hearth, sat the mother, rocking, looking sadly shaken now her excitement was over. Lettie was nursing the little baby, and Emily the next child. George was smoking his pipe and trying to look natural. The little kitchen was crowded—there was no room—there was not even a place on the table for the stew-jar, so I gathered together cups and mugs containing tea sops, and set down the vessel of ignominy on the much slopped tea-cloth. The four little children were striped and patched with tears—at my entrance one under the table recommenced to weep, so I gave him my pencil which pushed in and out, but which pushes in and out no more. The sight of the stewpot affected the mother afresh. She wept again, crying: “An’ I niver thought as ’ow it were aught but a snared un; as if I should set ’im on ter thieve their old doe; an’ tough it was an’ all; an’ ’im a thief, an me called all the names they could lay their tongues to: an’ then in my bit of a pantry, takin’ the very pots out: that stewpot as I brought all the way from Nottingham, an’ I’ve ’ad it afore our Minnie wor born—” The baby, the little baby, then began to cry. The mother got up suddenly, and took it. “Oh, come then, come then my pet. Why, why cos they shanna, no they shanna. Yes, he’s his mother’s least little lad, he is, a little un. Hush then, there, there—what’s a matter, my little?” She hushed the baby, and herself. At length she asked: “’As th’ p’liceman gone as well?” “Yes—it’s all right,” I said. She sighed deeply, and her look of weariness was painful to see. “How old is your eldest?” I asked. “Fanny—she’s fourteen. She’s out service at Websters. Then Jim, as is thirteen next month—let’s see, yes, it is next month—he’s gone to Flints—farming. They can’t do much—an’ I shan’t let ’em go into th’ pit, if I can help it. My husband always used to say they should never go in th’ pit.” “They can’t do much for you.”