“Why,” answered Liza, with a big tear near to toppling over the corner of her eye, “why, the crack’t ’un goes and gathers up all the maimed dogs in Wythburn; ’Becca Rudd’s ‘Dash,’ and that’s lame on a hind leg, and Nancy Grey’s ‘Meg,’ and you know she’s blind of one eye, and Grace M’Nippen’s ‘King Dick,’ and he’s been broken back’t this many a long year, and they all up and follow Robbie when he’s nigh almost drunk, and then he’s right—­away he goes with his cap a’ one side, and all the folks laughin’—­the big poddish-head!”

There was a great sob for Liza in the heart of the humor of that situation; and trying no longer to conceal her sorrow at her lover’s relapse into drinking habits, she laid her head on Rotha’s breast and wept outright.

“We must go to Mrs. Ray; she’ll be lonely, poor old thing,” said Rotha, drying Liza’s eyes; “besides, she hasn’t had her supper, you know.”

The girls left the dairy, where the churning had made small progress as yet, and went through the kitchen towards the room where the Dame of Shoulthwaite lay in that long silence which had begun sooner with her than with others.

As they passed towards the invalid’s room, Mrs. Garth came in at the porch.  It was that lady’s first visit for years, and her advent on this occasion seemed to the girls to forebode some ill.  But her manner had undergone an extraordinary transformation.  Her spiteful tone was gone, and the look of sourness, which had often suggested to Liza her affinity to the plums that grew in her own garden, had given place to what seemed to be a look of extreme benevolence.

“It’s slashy and cold, but I’ve come to see my old neighbor,” she said.  “I’m sure I’ve suffered lang and sair ower her affliction, poor body.”

Without much show of welcome from Rotha, the three women went into Mrs. Ray’s room and sat down.

“Poor body, who wad have thought it?” said Mrs. Garth, putting her apron to her eye as she looked up at the vacant gaze in the eyes of the sufferer.  “I care not now how soon my awn glass may run out.  I’ve so fret myself ower this mischance that the wrinkles’ll soon come.”

“She needn’t wait much for them if she’s anxious to be off,” whispered Liza to Rotha.

“Yes,” continues Mrs. Garth, in her melancholy soliloquy, “I fret mysel’ the lee-lang day.”

“She’s a deal over slape and smooth,” whispered Liza again.  “What’s it all about?  There’s something in the wind, mind me.”

“The good dear old creatur; and there’s no knowin’ now if she’s provided for; there’s no knowin’ it, I say, is there?”

To this appeal neither of the girls showed any disposition to respond.  Mrs. Garth thereupon applied the apron once more to her eye, and continued:  “Who wad have thought she could have been brought down so low, she as held her head so high.”

“So she did, did she!  Never heard on it,” Liza broke in.

Not noticing the interruption, Mrs. Garth continued:  “And now, who knows but she may come down lower yet—­who knows but she may?”