o--yes--_no!_" she said, and then
revoked. "Really, though, I don't know, after all, why they shouldn't!
What harm _can_ it do?"

What harm indeed? Mo and M'riar looked the question at each other, and
neither looked a negative reply. Very good, then! Dave and Dolly were to
know, but who was to tell?

Gwen considered again. Then it flashed across her mind that the
disclosure of the relationship of his two Grannies could have no
distressing effect on Dave. Time and Change and Death are only names, to
a chick not eight years old, and nothing need be told of the means by
which the sisters' lives had been cut apart. As for Dolly, she would
either weep or laugh at a piece of news, according to the suggestions of
her informant. Passionless narrative would leave her unaffected either
way. Told as good news, this would be accepted as good, and it would be
a pleasure to tell it to those babies.

"I'll tell them myself," said she. "Don't you come up. Is Mrs. Burr
there?" No--Mrs. Burr was at Mrs. Ragstroar's, attending to a little job
for her. Gwen vanished up the stairs, and her welcome was audible below.

She did not mince matters, and the two young folks were soon crowing
with delight at her statement, made with equanimity, that she knew that
Granny Marrowbone was really old Mrs. Picture's sister. She saw no
reason for making the announcement thrilling. It was enough to say that
each of them had been told wicked lies about the other, and been
deceived by bad people, such as there was every reason to hope were not
to be found in Sapps Court, or the neighbourhood. "And each of them,"
she added, "thought the other was dead and buried, a long time ago!"
Inexplicably, she felt it easier to say dead and buried, than merely
dead.

Dolly, having been recently in collision with Time, saw her way to
profitable comparison. "A long, long, long time, like my birfday!" she
said, suggestively but unstructurally.

"Heaps longer," said Gwen. "Heaps and heaps!" Dolly was impressed,
almost cowed. She could not be even with these aeons and eras and epochs,
at her time of life.

Dave burst into a shout of unrestrained glee at the discovery that his
London and country Grannies were sisters. "Oy shall wroyte to say me and
Dolly are glad. Ever such long letters to bofe." A moment later his
face had clouded over. "Oy say!" said he, "will they be glad or sorry?"

"Glad," said Gwen venturesomely. "Why should they be sorry? You must
write them v