Cunning even under the spur of sudden discomfiture, she whipped the thing beneath her apron before she struggled to her feet and faced round upon me. “What ails ye, Renalt?” she wheezed, in a voice like that of one winded by a blow--“to fright a body, sich like?” “You needn’t be frightened, unless you were doing something you shouldn’t, you know.” “Shud and shudn’t,” she said, her yellow under jaw, scratched all over with fine wrinkles, moving like a barbel’s. “I doesn’t take my morals fro’ a Trender.” “You take all you can get, Peggy. Why not a picture with the rest?” “My own nevvy!” she cried, with an attenuated scream--“blessed son to Amelia as were George’s first wife and died o’ cramps o’ the cold dew from a shift hung out on St. Bartlemey’s day.” “Now, Peggy,” I said sternly, “I saw that picture and it wasn’t of your nephew or of any other relation of yours. It was a silhouette, as they call it, of my brother, Modred, made when he was a little fellow, by some one in a show that came here, and it used to hang in Modred’s room.” “Ye lie, Renalt!” she cried, panting at me. “It’s Amelia’s boy--and mayn’t I enjoy the fruits o’ my own heritage?” “Let me look at it, then; and if I’m wrong I’ll ask your pardon.” “Keep arf!” she cried, backing from me. “Keep arf, or I’ll tear your weasand wi’ my claws!” I made a little rush and clutched her. She could not keep her promise without loosening her hold of the picture, but she butted at me, with her cap bobbing, and dinted my shin with her vicious old toes. Then, seeing it was all useless, she crumpled the paper up into a ball and, tossing it from her, fell back in her chair and threw her apron over her head. I dived for the picture and smoothed out its creases. “Peggy!” I said. “I tuk it--I tuk it!” wailed the old woman. “I tuk it fro’ the wall when I come up wi’ the blarnkets and nubbody were there to see!” “Why did you take it and why have you riddled it with holes like this?” She slipped down on her trembling knees. “Don’tee be hard on me, Renalt--don’tee! I swear, I were frighted myself at what I done. I didn’t hardly guess it would act so. Don’tee have me burnt or drownded, Renalt. It were a wicked thing to a body old enough to be your grandam, and I’ve but a little glint o’ time left.” “I don’t know what you mean, Peggy. You’d no business to take the picture, of course, and still less to treat it like this. But your nature’s a thieving one, and I suppose you can’t help it. Get off your knees. It’s done, and there’s an end of it.” She stopped her driveling moan and looked up at me queerly, I thought. “Ay, I’d no call to do it, of course,” she said. “Just a body’s absence o’ mind, Renalt, ye see--same as pricking pastry in time to a toone like. I thought maybe if ye saw it ye’d want to tell the old man upstairs, and he’s got the strong arm yet, for all the worm in his brain.”