’No.  She ain’t.  ‘Twould ha’ been better for some folk if she had been.  She come to Jim in a candle-box with all the proper papers—­lawful child o’ some couple in Lunnon somewheres—­mother dead, father drinkin’. And there was that Lunnon society’s five shillin’s a week for her.  Jim’s mother she wouldn’t despise week-end money, but I never heard Jim was much of a muck-grubber.  Let be how ’twill, they two mothered up Mary no bounds, till it looked at last like they’d forgot she wasn’t their own flesh an’ blood.  Yes, I reckon they forgot Mary wasn’t their’n by rights.’

‘That’s no new thing,’ said Jabez.  ’There’s more’n one or two in this parish wouldn’t surrender back their Bernarders.  You ask Mark Copley an’ his woman an’ that Bernarder cripple-babe o’ theirs.’

‘Maybe they need the five shillin’,’ Jesse suggested.

‘It’s handy,’ said Jabez.  ‘But the child’s more.  “Dada” he says, an’ “Mumma” he says, with his great rollin’ head-piece all hurdled up in that iron collar. He won’t live long—­his backbone’s rotten, like.  But they Copleys do just about set store by him—­five bob or no five bob.’

‘Same way with Jim an’ his mother,’ Jesse went on.  ’There was talk betwixt ’em after a few years o’ not takin’ any more week-end money for Mary; but let alone she never passed a farden in the mire ’thout longin’s, Jim didn’t care, like, to push himself forward into the Society’s remembrance.  So naun came of it.  The week-end money would ha’ made no odds to Jim—­not after his uncle willed him they four cottages at Eastbourne an’ money in the bank.’

‘That was true, too, then?  I heard something in a scadderin’ word-o’-mouth way,’ said Jabez.

’I’ll answer for the house property, because Jim he requested my signed name at the foot o’ some papers concernin’ it.  Regardin’ the money in the bank, he nature-ally wouldn’t like such things talked about all round the parish, so he took strangers for witnesses.’

’Then ‘twill make Mary worth seekin’ after?’

‘She’ll need it.  Her Maker ain’t done much for her outside nor yet in.’

‘That ain’t no odds.’  Jabez shook his head till the water showered off his hat-brim.  ’If Mary has money, she’ll be wed before any likely pore maid.  She’s cause to be grateful to Jim.’

‘She hides it middlin’ close, then,’ said Jesse.  ’It don’t sometimes look to me as if Mary has her natural rightful feelin’s.  She don’t put on an apron o’ Mondays ’thout being druv to it—­in the kitchen or the hen-house.  She’s studyin’ to be a school-teacher.  She’ll make a beauty!  I never knowed her show any sort o’ kindness to nobody—­not even when Jim’s mother was took dumb.  No!  ’Twadn’t no stroke.  It stifled the old lady in the throat here.  First she couldn’t shape her words no shape; then she clucked, like, an’ lastly she couldn’t more than suck down spoon-meat an’ hold her peace.  Jim took her to Doctor