die--you'll make yourself ridic'lous.'"

"What did she mean?"

"Can't think," answered Simon, with great solemnity. "Will you have
a drop of something? In this vale of tears we want consolation."
Then, in a loud voice, "Polly--another glass."

After looking steadily and sadly into the embers, Mr. Verstage
said: "I don't believe that woman ever made a mistake in her
life--but once."

"When was that?"

"When she gave Matabel to you. We wanted her in this house. Her
proper place was here. It all comes wi' meddlin' wi' what ort to
be let alone--and that is Providence. There's never no sayin' but
Iver--"

Dimly the old host saw that he was floundering upon delicate
ground. "My doctrine is," said he, "let things alone and they'll
come right in the end."

Bideabout moved uneasily. He winced at the reference to Iver. But
what he now really was anxious to arrive at was the matter of money
left by Mrs. Verstage to Mehetabel.

"Now," said Simon, looking after the serving-maid, as she left the
bar, when she had deposited the tumbler beside Bideabout. "Now, my
old woman was amazin' set against that girl. Why--I can't think.
She's a good girl when let alone. But Sanna never would let her
alone. She were ever naggin' at her; so that she upset the poor
thing's nerve. She broke the taypot and chucked the beer to the
pigs, but that was because she were flummeried wi' my old woman
going on at her so. She said to me she really couldn't bear to
think how I'd go on after she were gone. I sed, to comfort her,
that I knowed Polly would do her best. 'She'll do the best she can
for herself,' answered Sanna, as sharp as she said 'Yes, I will,'
when we was married. I don't know what her meanin' was. You won't
believe it, but it's true what I'm going to tell you. She said to
me, did Susanna, 'Simon there was Mary Toft, couldn't die, because
there were wild-fowl feathers in her bed. They had to take her off
the four-poster and get another feather-bed, before she could die
right off. Now,' said Sanna, 'it's somethin' like that with me. I
ain't got wild-bird feathers under me, but there's a wild fowl in
the house, and that's Polly. So long as she's here die I can't,
and die I won't.' 'Well, old woman,' sed I, if that's all, to
accommodate you, I'll send Polly to her mother,' and so I did--and
she died right on end, peaceable."

"But Polly is here."

"Oh, yes--when Sanna were gone--we couldn't do wi'out her. She
knowed that well enough