a
stitch or two. "We must leave it to Providence," she ended serenely.

At first sight there was nothing much in this dictum; it appeared even
commonplace. But Mrs. Baxter had been lunching with the Mildmays, had
heard a full account of what the doctors said about Quisante, and had
expressed her conviction that he could not possibly last long. So far as
could be judged then, the confidence which she proposed to show ran no
appreciable risk of being misplaced, while at the same time she avoided
committing herself by any expression of a personal opinion.

"Doubtless, my dear," said the Dean with a little cough.

"If he had thought less about himself and more about other people----" she
resumed.

"That can't have anything to do with an apoplectic seizure," the Dean
pleaded.

Mrs. Baxter looked up with a patient smile.

"If you weren't in such a hurry, Dan, to show what you call your
enlightenment (though heaven knows you may be wrong all the time, and a
judgment is a perfectly possible thing) you'd have found out that I was
only going to say that, if he'd thought more of other people, he'd find
other people thinking more about him now."

"There I quite agree with you, my dear."

Mrs. Baxter looked less grateful than she might have for this endorsement
of her views; self-confidence is apt to hold external support in cheap
esteem.

"When the first Mrs. Greening died," she remarked, "they gave the maids
very nice black frocks, with a narrow edging of good crape. The very
first Sunday-out that Elizabeth had--the butcher's daughter near the Red
Cow--you remember?--she stuck a red ribbon round the neck."

The Dean looked puzzled.

"Mrs. Greening was the most selfish woman I've ever known," explained
Mrs. Baxter; and she added with a pensive smile, "And I've lived in a
Cathedral town for thirty years."

The red-ribbon became intelligible; it fell into line with Morewood's
ill-disciplined wish. Both signified an absence of love, such a departing
without being desired as serves for the epitaph of a Jewish king. The
Dean cast round for somebody who would prove such an inscription false on
Alexander Quisante's tomb.

"Anyhow it would break the old aunt's heart," he said.

"It'd save her money," observed Mrs. Baxter.

"And his wife!" mused the Dean. It was impossible to say whether there
were a question in his words or not. But his first instance had not been
Quisante's wife; the old aunt offered a surer case.

"I