No neighbour was with her.  If you think this hard, it is because you do not understand.  Perhaps Nanny had never been very lovable except to one man, and him, it is said, she lost through her own vanity; but there was much in her to like.  The neighbours, of whom there were two not a hundred yards away, would have been with her now but they feared to hurt her feelings.  No heart opens to sympathy without letting in delicacy, and these poor people knew that Nanny would not like them to see her being taken away.  For a week they had been aware of what was coming, and they had been most kind to her, but that hideous word, the poorhouse, they had not uttered.  Poorhouse is not to be spoken in Thrums, though it is nothing to tell a man that you see death in his face.  Did Nanny think they knew where she was going? was a question they whispered to each other, and her suffering eyes cut scars on their hearts.  So now that the hour had come they called their children into their houses and pulled down their blinds.

“If you would like to see her by yourself,” the doctor said eagerly to Gavin, as the horse drew up at Nanny’s gate, “I’ll wait with the horse.  Not,” he added, hastily, “that I feel sorry for her.  We are doing her a kindness.”

They dismounted together, however, and Nanny, who had run from the trap into the house, watched them from her window.

McQueen saw her and said glumly, “I should have come alone, for if you pray she is sure to break down.  Mr. Dishart, could you not pray cheerfully?”

“You don’t look very cheerful yourself,” Gavin said sadly.

“Nonsense,” answered the doctor.  “I have no patience with this false sentiment.  Stand still, Lightning, and be thankful you are not your master today.”

The door stood open, and Nanny was crouching against the opposite wall of the room, such a poor, dull kitchen, that you would have thought the furniture had still to be brought into it.  The blanket and the piece of old carpet that was Nanny’s coverlet were already packed in her box.  The plate rack was empty.  Only the round table and the two chairs, and the stools and some pans were being left behind.

“Well, Nanny,” the doctor said, trying to bluster, “I have come, and you see Mr. Dishart is with me.”

Nanny rose bravely.  She knew the doctor was good to her, and she wanted to thank him.  I have not seen a great deal of the world myself, but often the sweet politeness of the aged poor has struck me as beautiful.  Nanny dropped a curtesy, an ungainly one maybe, but it was an old woman giving the best she had.

“Thank you kindly, sirs,” she said; and then two pairs of eyes dropped before hers.

“Please to take a chair,” she added timidly.  It is strange to know that at that awful moment, for let none tell me it was less than awful, the old woman was the one who could speak.

Both men sat down, for they would have hurt Nanny by remaining standing.  Some ministers would have known the right thing to say to her, but Gavin dared not let himself speak.  I have again to remind you that he was only one-and-twenty.