g
firmly across at Joan of Arc and St. George, in plaster, but done over
bronze so you couldn't tell; precious possessions of Mrs. Burr, who was
always inquiring what it would cost to repair Joan's sword--which had
disintegrated and laid bare the wire in its soul--and never getting an
estimate. Nor on the face of Mrs. Burr herself, coming upstairs from her
job out at Mrs. Ragstroar's, and beaming--prosaically, but still
beaming--on the young lady that had come to see her at the Hospital.

* * * * *

"Oh, I remember, by-the-by," said that young lady, three minutes later,
having really said adieu all round to the family; including Dolly, who
had suddenly awakened to the position, and overtaken her at the foot of
the stairs. "I remember there _was_ something else I wanted to ask you,
Aunt Maria. Did Mrs. Prichard ever talk to you about her son?"

Was it wonderful that Aunt M'riar should start and flinch from speech,
and that Uncle Mo should look preoccupied about everything outside the
conversation? Can you imagine the sort of feeling an intensely truthful
person like Aunt M'riar would have under such circumstances? How could
she, without feeling like duplicity itself, talk about this son as
though he were unknown to her, when his foul presence still hung about
the room he had quitted less than an hour since? That fact, and that she
had seen him, then and there, face to face with her beautiful
questioner, weighed heavier on her at that moment than her own terrible
relation to him, a discarded wife oppressed by an uncancelled marriage.

She had got to answer that question. "Mrs. Prichard _has_ a son," she
said. "But _he's_ no good." This came with a jerk--perhaps with a weak
hope that it might eject him from the conversation.

"She hasn't set eyes on him, didn't she say, for years past?" said old
Mo, seeing that M'riar wanted help. Also with a hope of eliminating the
convict. "Didn't even know whether he was living or dead, did she?"

The reply, after consideration, was:--"No-o! She said that."

And then Gwen looked from one to the other. "Oh-h!" said she. "Then
probably the man _was_ her son.... Look here! I must read you the
postscript I left out." She reopened Mrs. Thrale's letter, and read that
the writer's mother had been much upset by a man who laid claim to being
Mrs. Prichard's son. As her eyes were on the letter, she did not see the
glance of reciprocal intelligence that passed