cy remember me, miss! When I opened the door,
I had no blood left. There stood two men, with a hurdle on their
shoulders, and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging down, and the
front of it slouching, like a sack that has been stolen from; and behind
it there was an authority with two buttons on his back, and he waited
for me to say something; but to do so was beyond me. Not a bit of
caution or of fear about my sham dress-up, as the bad folk put it
afterward; the whole of such thoughts was beyond me outright, and no
thought of any thing came inside me, only to wait and wonder.

"'This corpse belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who
seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so. 'Young woman,
don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the parish will
be here, and the boys that come hankering after it. You be off!' he
cried out to a boy who was calling some more round the corner. 'Now,
young woman, we must come in if you please, and the least said the
soonest mended.'

"'Oh, but my mistress, my mistress!' I cried; 'and her time up, as nigh
as may be, any day or night before new moon. 'Oh, Mr. Constable, Mr.
Rural Polishman, take it to the tool shed, if you ever had a wife, Sir.'
Now even this was turned against us as if I had expected it. They said
that I must have known who it was, and to a certain length so I did,
miss, but only by the dress and the manner of the corpse, and lying with
an attitude there was no contradicting.

"I can not tell you now, my dear, exactly how things followed. My
mind was gone all hollow with the sudden shock upon it. However, I had
thought enough to make no noise immediate, nor tell the other foolish
girls, who would have set up bellowing. Having years to deal with little
ones brings knowledge of the rest to us. I think that I must have gone
to master's door, where Susan's orders were to put his shaving water
in a tin, and fetched him out, with no disturbance, only in his
dressing-gown. And when I told him what it was, his rosy color turned
like sheets, and he just said, 'Hush!' and nothing more. And guessing
what he meant, I ran and put my things on properly.

"But having time to think, the shock began to work upon me, and I was
fit for nothing when I saw the children smiling up with their tongues
out for their bread and milk, as they used to begin the day with. And
I do assure you, Miss Erema, my bitterest thought was of your coming,
though unknow