of the wedge in, and I assure you it was useless. Worse
than useless! So I gave it up. But I suspect that some shot of mine hit
the mark, without my seeing it. Something had made her susceptible. And
when the kid's letter came, that did it. I wasn't there."

"Oh--then you only heard...."

"I was called back. I found the old body gone off in a faint, and the
letter on the floor--at least, on the baby. I've got it in my pocket, I
do believe.... No, I haven't!"

"What's this on the window-ledge? This is Dave's hand." But Gwen saw
that it was directed to "Old Mrs. Picture Strides Cotage Chorlton under
bradBury." She opened it without remorse, and the doctor said:--"Of
course! He wrote two. That one's to t'other old lady. Just the same, I
expect."

It was, word for word. But it had a short postscript:--"When you come
back me and Dolly shall give you tea it is stood ready and grany
maroBone too."

"Poor little people!" said Gwen. "How they will feel it! But I mustn't
keep you, doctor."

And then, after a word or two to Widow Thrale, Dr. Nash drove off
through the snow, now thickening.

Gwen, you see, was quite alive to the situation; perhaps indeed she was
ready to put a worse construction on it than the doctor. He had seen so
many a spark of life, far nearer extinction than old Maisie's, flicker
up and grow and grow, and end by steady burning through its appointed
time, that no amount of mere attenuation frightened him. Gwen, on the
other hand, could not bring herself to believe that any creature so
frail would stand the strain of such an earthquake of sensibilities.
Unless indeed some change for the better showed itself in a few hours,
she _must_ succumb. Probably she was only relieving the tension of her
own feelings by looking facts fiercely in the face. It is a common
attitude of inexperience, under like circumstances. Dr. Nash certainly
had said to her that "the strength was well maintained." But do we not
all of us accept that phrase as an ill-omen--a vulture in the desert?
No--no! Look the facts in the face! Glare at them!

Returning to the bedside, where Granny Marrable was sitting in her
arm-chair beside her sister, who was quiet--possibly sleeping--she took
the opportunity to note the changes that Time had wrought in each twin.
The moment she came to look for them, she began to marvel that she had
never seen the similarities; for instance, scarcely a month since, when
the two were face to face outside thi