"I don’t believe as you’ve been in to see poor S’bina," said Mrs. Tom to her companion. Byron’s presence was disturbing to her and she spoke more by way of distracting her thoughts, than because she thought Betsy would care to pay the customary visit. "Why don’t you go now before the rest come? There’ll be plenty to do, directly." Mrs. Con’s stout body quivered a negative. "My dear life, I couldn’t bear to see ’er. I should be picturin’ of ’er everywhere if I did." "Don’t ’ee be so silly," encouraged the other. "I don’t believe there’s ’ardly any funeral in the parish but what I’ve seen them." Mrs. Con sank her voice to a mysterious whisper. "’Av you never seed anything after, Isolda?" "I never seed nothing worse then meself. More need to be afraid of the livin’ than the dead." "Well, my dear, you’m different to me. I’m that narvous if I was to see a body, I knaw I should ever after be fancying I seed its dead face." A cart drove up to the open door and the Sowdens of Trerumpford, a childless couple who, even in that land of fat stockings were accounted well-to-do, came towards Byron. He had been for a moment in conversation with the undertaker who, the sixteen pairs of black gloves for the bearers in a parcel under his arm, was asking how soon it would be convenient for him to screw down the coffin. "Mrs. Bate’ll let you know," said Byron hastily and turned to shake old Sowden by the hand. Pleased that this important farmer should be the first to cross his threshold be showed it by his greeting; but to Beulah Sowden it made little difference how he was received. He was a little tight silent man, with glassy eyes and an unresponsive manner. Accepting Byron’s cordiality with his usual reserve he left his wife, a faded person in a gooky bonnet, to offer their condolences. The Sowdens were come because Sabina Byron’s mother had been cousin to Beulah and, as soon as the civilities incumbent on them had been duly observed, they stood aside to make room for others. Not a spark had Byron been able to strike from either. He glanced at them a little doubtfully as they went down the room. Was their reserve natural or assumed? They had uttered the customary phrases, in the customary way and their manner had been sufficiently friendly if a trifle, the least bit in the world, patronizing. It was difficult for him to grasp that, to the Sowdens and their like, the situation was in no way altered. He, though he had spent his life among them, must remain a ’foreigner.’ Byrons they knew but he was no Byron, only a waif of the sea, who out of charity had been given the name.