“Oh, an’ before her, miss, I went to a school to another woman, as lived up Shepherd’s Row.  You remember her, Betsy Brunt?”

Mrs. Brunt’s worn eyes began already to gleam and sparkle.

“Yis, I recolleck very well, Mrs. Jellison.  She wor Mercy Moss, an’ a goodish deal of trouble you’d use to get me into wi’ Mercy Moss, all along o’ your tricks.”

Mrs. Jellison, still with folded arms, began to rock herself gently up and down as though to stimulate memory.

“My word, but Muster Maurice—­he wor the clergyman here then, miss—­wor set on Mercy Moss.  He and his wife they flattered and cockered her up.  Ther wor nobody like her for keepin’ school, not in their eyes—­till one midsummer—­she—­well she—­I don’t want to say nothink onpleasant—­but she transgressed,” said Mrs. Jellison, nodding mysteriously, triumphant however in the unimpeachable delicacy of her language, and looking round the circle for approval.

“What do you say?” asked Marcella, innocently.  “What did Mercy Moss do?”

Mrs. Jellison’s eyes danced with malice and mischief, but her mouth shut like a vice.  Patton leaned forward on his stick, shaken with a sort of inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed under her breath till she must needs sigh because laughter tired her old bones.  Mrs. Brunt gurgled gently.  And finally Mrs. Jellison was carried away.

“Oh, my goodness me, don’t you make me tell tales o’ Mercy Moss!” she said at last, dashing the water out of her eyes with an excited tremulous hand.  “She’s bin dead and gone these forty year—­married and buried mos’ respeckable—­it ’ud be a burning shame to bring up tales agen her now.  Them as tittle-tattles about dead folks needn’t look to lie quiet theirselves in their graves.  I’ve said it times, and I’ll say it again.  What are you lookin’ at me for, Betsy Brunt?”

And Mrs. Jellison drew up suddenly with a fierce glance at Mrs. Brunt.

“Why, Mrs. Jellison, I niver meant no offence,” said Mrs. Brunt, hastily.

“I won’t stand no insinooating,” said Mrs. Jellison, with energy.  “If you’ve got soomthink agen me, you may out wi’ ‘t an’ niver mind the young lady.”

But Mrs. Brunt, much flurried, retreated amid a shower of excuses, pursued by her enemy, who was soon worrying the whole little company, as a dog worries a flock of sheep, snapping here and teasing there, chattering at the top of her voice in broad dialect, as she got more and more excited, and quite as ready to break her wit on Marcella as on anybody else.  As for the others, most of them had known little else for weeks than alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amused and excited to-night by Mrs. Jellison’s audacities as a Londoner is by his favourite low comedian at his favourite music-hall.  They played chorus to her, laughed, baited her; even old Patton was drawn against his will into a caustic sociability.

Marcella meanwhile sat on her stool, her chin upon her hand, and her full glowing eyes turned upon the little spectacle, absorbing it all with a covetous curiosity.