ss of funeral it might have been. He doubted
whether, with her woman's mind, she was getting all the comfort she could
out of three four-wheeled cabs and a wreath of lilies. The seamstress's
thin face, with its pinched, passive look, was indeed thinner, quieter,
than ever. What she was thinking of he could not tell. There were so
many things she might be thinking of. She, too, no doubt, had seen her
grandeur, if but in the solitary drive away from the church where, eight
years ago, she and Hughs had listened to the words now haunting Creed.
Was she thinking of that; of her lost youth and comeliness, and her man's
dead love; of the long descent to shadowland; of the other children she
had buried; of Hughs in prison; of the girl that had "put a spell on
him"; or only of the last precious tugs the tiny lips at rest in the
first four-wheeled cab had given at her breast? Or was she, with a nicer
feeling for proportion, reflecting that, had not people been so kind, she
might have had to walk behind a funeral provided by the parish?

The old butler could not tell, but he--whose one desire now, coupled with
the wish to die outside a workhouse, was to save enough to bury his own
body without the interference of other people--was inclined to think she
must be dwelling on the brighter side of things; and, designing to
encourage her, he said: "Wonderful improvement in these 'ere four-wheel
cabs! Oh dear, yes! I remember of them when they were the shadders of
what they are at the present time of speakin'."

The seamstress answered in her quiet voice: "Very comfortable this is.
Sit still, Stanley!" Her little son, whose feet did not reach the floor,
was drumming his heels against the seat. He stopped and looked at her,
and the old butler addressed him.

"You'll a-remember of this occasion," he said, "when you gets older."

The little boy turned his black eyes from his mother to him who had
spoken last.

"It's a beautiful wreath," continued Creed. "I could smell of it all the
way up the stairs. There's been no expense spared; there's white laylock
in it--that's a class of flower that's very extravagant."

A train of thought having been roused too strong for his discretion, he
added: "I saw that young girl yesterday. She came interrogatin' of me in
the street."

On Mrs. Hughs' face, where till now expression had been buried, came such
a look as one may see on the face of an owl-hard, watchful, cruel;
harder, more cr