“I’ve a-been on the look-out for you ever since tea-time, Mrs. Domeny, my dear.  Thinks I constant, ‘I wonder how Mrs. Domeny be a-gettin’ on, and I wonder how the poor widow-man be a-bearin’ up.’  Come in an’ sit ye down, do; ye must be mortal hot and tired, walkin’ so far in your deep.”

Mrs. Domeny, a chubby, buxom little woman, who found it hard to eliminate from her rosy face all trace of a cheerfulness which, however habitual, would have been unbecoming on the occasion of a sister-in-law’s funeral, checked the smile with which she had been about to respond to her friend’s invitation, and heaved a sigh instead.

“Well, jist for a minute, Mrs. Cross.  There, to tell ’ee the truth, I’m fair wore out, what with a body’s feelin’s and a-walkin’ so far i’ the sun, and the dust a-gettin’ down one’s throat wi’ every sob, so to speak.  ‘Ees, my dear, I’m terrible dry, an’ I would like a cup o’ tea, jist about!  They hadn’t nothin’ but ham,” she added, “yonder at Brother John’s.  ’Twas a bit salt.  I always told poor Sarah as I did think she salted her hams too much; but, there! she be gone, poor soul, and it wouldn’t become me to speak ill of her ham now.”

“Ah, my dear,” groaned Mrs. Cross, pouring out a cupful of the inky-looking fluid that had been stewing on the hob for the last hour and a-half.  “Ah, my dear, all flesh is grass, as we do know.  She was a dried-up-looking poor body, your sister-in-law; I al’ays did say so, ye mid remember.  An’ how did ye leave poor John?”

“He was in floods,” responded Mrs. Domeny, her eyes filling with sympathetic tears.  “In floods, I do assure ’ee.  I did feel for en, I can tell ’ee.  ’Twas through me as they did first get to know each other.  ’Twas a very romantic marriage theirs was, Mrs. Cross; a real romance me an’ Robert al’ays did call it.”

“Ah!” commented her neighbour, half sympathetically, half interrogatively.  She kicked the logs together with her flat shoe, drew a chair close to her visitor’s, filled her own cup, and sat down with an expectant expression.

“’Ees, my dear, quite a romance, as you’ll say when I’ve a-told ’ee.  When my sister Susannah was laid up wi’ her ninth, which was a twin, my dear, an’ her husband out of work, and the other eight scarce able to do a hand’s turn for themselves, she wrote to me an’ axed me to come an’ look after things a bit till she got about again.  Well, I couldn’t say no, ye can understand, so Robert got Janie Domeny, brother Tom’s oldest girl, to come of a marnin’ to see to en, an’ I did go to poor Susannah.  Well, ’twas at Susannah’s, if you’ll believe me,” said Mrs. Domeny, with a solemnity which would have befitted the announcement of an event of national importance, “as I first came across poor Sarah.”

“Well!” ejaculated Mrs. Cross, pausing with a large bite of bread and butter distending her cheek, and uplifting her hands.  “Well, to think of it!”