“And she was white as marble-stone,” said Mrs. Cuxsom.  “And likewise such a thoughtful woman, too—­ah, poor soul—­that a’ minded every little thing that wanted tending.  ‘Yes,’ says she, ’when I’m gone, and my last breath’s blowed, look in the top drawer o’ the chest in the back room by the window, and you’ll find all my coffin clothes, a piece of flannel—­that’s to put under me, and the little piece is to put under my head; and my new stockings for my feet—­they are folded alongside, and all my other things.  And there’s four ounce pennies, the heaviest I could find, a-tied up in bits of linen, for weights—­two for my right eye and two for my left,’ she said.  ’And when you’ve used ’em, and my eyes don’t open no more, bury the pennies, good souls and don’t ye go spending ’em, for I shouldn’t like it.  And open the windows as soon as I am carried out, and make it as cheerful as you can for Elizabeth-Jane.’”

“Ah, poor heart!”

“Well, and Martha did it, and buried the ounce pennies in the garden.  But if ye’ll believe words, that man, Christopher Coney, went and dug ’em up, and spent ’em at the Three Mariners.  ‘Faith,’ he said, ’why should death rob life o’ fourpence?  Death’s not of such good report that we should respect ‘en to that extent,’ says he.”

“’Twas a cannibal deed!” deprecated her listeners.

“Gad, then I won’t quite ha’e it,” said Solomon Longways.  “I say it to-day, and ’tis a Sunday morning, and I wouldn’t speak wrongfully for a zilver zixpence at such a time.  I don’t see noo harm in it.  To respect the dead is sound doxology; and I wouldn’t sell skellintons—­leastwise respectable skellintons—­to be varnished for ’natomies, except I were out o’ work.  But money is scarce, and throats get dry.  Why should death rob life o’ fourpence?  I say there was no treason in it.”

“Well, poor soul; she’s helpless to hinder that or anything now,” answered Mother Cuxsom.  “And all her shining keys will be took from her, and her cupboards opened; and little things a’ didn’t wish seen, anybody will see; and her wishes and ways will all be as nothing!”

19.

Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by the fire.  It was three weeks after Mrs. Henchard’s funeral, the candles were not lighted, and a restless, acrobatic flame, poised on a coal, called from the shady walls the smiles of all shapes that could respond—­the old pier-glass, with gilt columns and huge entablature, the picture-frames, sundry knobs and handles, and the brass rosette at the bottom of each riband bell-pull on either side of the chimney-piece.

“Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?” said Henchard.

“Yes, sir; often,” she said.

“Who do you put in your pictures of ’em?”

“Mother and father—­nobody else hardly.”

Henchard always looked like one bent on resisting pain when Elizabeth-Jane spoke of Richard Newson as “father.”  “Ah!  I am out of all that, am I not?” he said....  “Was Newson a kind father?”