on her spectacles to get a
better view of her visitor--oh, how unconsciously!

Think of the last kiss she gave a sleeping baby, half a century ago!

There was, of course, a topic they could speak of--little Dave Wardle,
dear to both. Widow Thrale, fond as she had been of the child, had not
Granny Marrable's bias towards monopolizing him. _That_ was the result
of a _grande passion_, generated perhaps by the encouragement the young
man had given to a second Granny, so very equivalent to his first.
Moreover, there was that obscure reference in his letters to an
accident--for _axdnt_ was a mere clerical error. She worded an inquiry
after Dave, tentatively.

"I have not seen the dear child for four weeks," said old Maisie. "Oh
dear me, yes--four weeks and more! Let me see, when was the accident?...
Oh dear!--how the time does slip away!..."

"Was that the accident Dave speaks of in his letter? We could not quite
make out Dave's letter. Sometimes 'tis a little to seek, what the child
means."

Old Maisie nodded assent. "But he'll soon be quite a scholar and write
his own letters all through. I think her ladyship took this one to send
it back. I can tell you about the accident. It was owing to the
repairs." The old lady pursued the subject in the true spirit of a
narrator, beginning at a wrong end, by preference one unintelligible to
her hearer. In consequence, the actual fall of the house-wall was
postponed, in favour of a description of its cause, which dealt
specially with the blamelessness of Mr. Bartlett, and incidentally with
the dishonesty of some colleagues of his, of whom he had spoken as
"they," without particulars. Her leniency to Mr. Bartlett was entirely
founded on the fact that she had conversed with him once on the subject,
and had been mysteriously impressed with his simplicity and manliness.
How did Mr. Bartlett manage it? A faint percentage of beer, like foreign
matter in analyses, is not alone enough to establish integrity. Nor a
flavour of clothes.

The wall fell in the end, and Widow Thrale saw a light on the story,
after expressing more admiration and sympathy for Mr. Bartlett than was
human, under the circumstances. She was much impressed. "And by the
mercy of God you were all saved, ma'am," said she. "Her young ladyship
and little Dave, and his sister, and yourself!" It really seemed quite a
stroke of business, this, on the part of a Superior Power, which had
left building materials and gravitati