s. If they could not pass out of their small world by the
more reputable mode of dying, they would at least depart with this
amount of mystery. They had left the village in Farmer Lear's cart,
and Farmer Lear had left them in the high road; and after that,
nothing should be known.

"Shall we be moving on?" Jan asked at length. There was a gate beside
the road just there, with a small triangle of green before it, and
a granite roller half-buried in dock-leaves. Without answering, the
woman seated herself on this, and pulling a handful of the leaves,
dusted her shoes and skirt.

"Maria, you'll take a chill that'll carry you off, sitting 'pon that
cold stone."

"I don't care. 'Twon't carry me off afore I get inside, an' I'm going
in decent, or not at all. Come here, an' let me tittivate you."

He sat down beside her, and submitted to be dusted.

"You'd as lief lower me as not in their eyes, I verily believe."

"I always was one to gather dust."

"An' a fresh spot o' bacon-fat 'pon your weskit, that I've kept the
moths from since goodness knows when!"

Old Jan looked down over his waistcoat. It was of good
"West-of-England broadcloth, and he had worn it on the day when he
married the woman at his side.

"I'm thinking--" he began.

"Hey?"

"I'm thinking I'll find it hard to make friends in--in there. 'Tis
such a pity, to my thinking, that by reggilations we'll be parted so
soon as we get inside. You've a-got so used to my little ways
an' corners, an' we've a-got so many little secrets together an'
old-fash'ned odds an' ends o' knowledge, that you can take my meaning
almost afore I start to speak. An' that's a great comfort to a man o'
my age. It'll be terrible hard, when I wants to talk, to begin at the
beginning every time. There's that old yarn o' mine about Hambly's cow
an' the lawn-mowing machine--I doubt that anybody 'll enjoy it so
much as you always do; an' I've so got out o' the way o' telling the
beginning--which bain't extra funny, though needful to a stranger's
understanding the whole joke--that I 'most forgets how it goes."

"We'll see one another now an' then, they tell me. The sexes meet for
Chris'mas-trees an' such-like."

"I'm jealous that 'twon't be the same. You can't hold your triflin'
confabs with a great Chris'mas-tree blazin' away in your face as
important as a town afire."

"Well, I'm going to start along," the old woman decided, getting on
her feet; "or else someone 'll be driving b