le's and Toby's midday meal, all reference to
glass-mending was at an end, and Toby was making such a noise about the
relative merits of brown potatoes in their skins, and potatoes _per se_
potatoes, that you could not hear yourself speak.

In spite of her separation from her beautiful new Guardian Angel, and
her uneasiness about the nature of that dangerous illness--for were not
people dying of cholera every day?--she felt happier at Strides Cottage
than in the ancient quarters Francis Quarles had occupied, where her
position had been too anomalous to be endurable. Gwen's scheme had been
that Mrs. Masham should play the part Widow Thrale seemed to fill so
easily. It had failed. The fact is that nothing but sympathy with
vulgarity gives what is called tact, and in this case the Guardian
Angel's scorn of the stupid reservations and distinctions of the
servantry at the Towers had quite prevented her stocking the article.

Perhaps Mrs. Thrale fell so easily into the task of making old
Maisie happy and at ease because she was furnished with a means of
explaining her and accounting for her, by the popularity Dave Wardle
had achieved with the neighbours a year ago. Thus she had said to
Elizabeth-next-door:--"You'll call to mind our little Davy Wardle, a
twelvemonth back?--he that was nigh to being killed by the fire-engine?
Well--there then!--this old soul belongs with him. 'Tis she he called
his London Granny, and old Mrs. Picture. I would not speak to her exact
name, never having been told it--'tis something like Picture. Her young
ladyship at the Towers has given me the charge of her. She's a gentle
old soul, and sweet-spoken, to my thinking." So that when
Elizabeth-next-door came to converse with old Maisie, they had a topic
in common. Dave's blue eyes and courteous demeanour having left a strong
impression on next-door, and on all who came within his radius. Perhaps
if such a lubricant had existed at the Towers, the social machinery
would have worked easier, and heated bearings would have been avoided.

It was the same with one or two others of the neighbours, who really
came in to learn something of the aged person with such silvery-white
hair, whom Widow Thrale had brought to the Cottage. Little memories of
Dave were a passport to her heart. What strikes us, who know the facts,
as strange, is that no one of these good women--all familiar with the
face of Granny Marrable--were alive to the resemblance between the two