t the person most concerned, Ruth Thrale
herself, remained absolutely blind to a fact which might have struck her
had she not been intensely familiar with her reputed mother's face. The
features of every day were things _per se_, not capable of comparison
with casual extramural samples. They never are, within family walls.

That this was no mere inertness of observation, but a good strong
opacity of vision, was clear when, after leaving the convalescent Toby
to dreams of indulgence in the pleasures of the table, and victorious
encounters, she roused her old visitor to bring her into supper.

"There now!--it _is_ strange that I should have company tonight. I never
thought to have the luck, yesterday, when you were giving me _my_ tea,
Mrs...." She stopped on the name, and supplied a cup thereof--supper was
a mixed meal at Strides Cottage--then continued:--"That brings to mind
to ask you, whether little Davy is in the right of it when he writes
your name 'Picture'?... Is he not, mayhap, calling you out of your name,
childlike?"

"But of course he is, bless his little heart! My name is Prichard.
P-r-i-c-h--Prich." She spelt the first syllable, to make sure no _t_ got
in. "The Lady, Gwen, has taken it of him, to humour him and Dolly, just
as their young mouths speak it--Picture! But it isn't Picture; it's
Prichard." Old Maisie felt quite mendacious. She seldom had to state so
roundly that her assumed name was authentic. Widow Thrale made no
comment, only saying:--"I thought the child had made 'Picture' out of
his own head." The talk scarcely turned on the name for more than a
minute, as she went on to say:--"Now you must eat some supper, Mrs.
Prichard, because you hardly took anything for dinner. And see what a
ride you had!" She went on to make appeals on behalf of bacon, eggs,
bloaters, cold mutton and so on, with only a very small response from
the old lady, who seemed to live on nothing. A compromise was effected,
the latter promising to take some gruel just before going to bed.

Two influences were at work to keep the antecedents of either out of
the conversation. Old Maisie fought shy of inquiries, which might have
produced counter-inquiry she could scarcely have met by silence; and
Mrs. Thrale shrank, with a true instinctive delicacy, from prying into a
record which had the word _poverty_ so legible on its title-page, and
signs of a former well-being so visible on its subject. Besides, how
about Sapps Court and Dav