ly knew that she herself could not speak the word.

Aunt M'riar stole up after her stealthily--not Uncle Mo; his weight on
the old stairs would have made a noise. They stood side by side on the
landing, just catching sight of the little poppet in the armchair, all
unkempt gold and blue eyes, quite content with her personation of the
beloved old presence it would never know again. Aunt M'riar could just
follow Susan Burr's stifled whisper:--"She's being old Mrs. Picture, in
her chair."

It was confirmed by Dave's speech from the window, unseen. "You _ain't_
old Mrs. Picture. When Mrs. Picture comes, oy shall tell her you said
you was her, and then you'll see what Mrs. Picture'll say!" He spoke
with a deep earnestness--a champion of Truth against an insidious and
ungrounded fiction, that pretence was reality.

Then Dolly's voice, immovable in conviction, sweet and clear in
correction of mere error:--"I _is_ Mrs. Spicture, and when she comes
she'll _say_ I was Mrs. Spicture. She'll set in her chair wiv scushions,
and _say_ I was Mrs. Spicture."

The two listeners without did not wait to hear Dave's indignant
rejoinder. They could not bear the tranquil ignorance of the children,
and their unconsciousness of the black cloud closing in on them. They
turned and went noiselessly down the stairs, choking back the grief they
dared not grant indulgence to, by so much as a word or sound. The
chronic discussion that they had left behind went on--on--always the
same controversy, as it seemed; the same placid assurance of Dolly, the
same indignant protest of Dave.

At the stairfoot, Uncle Mo, silent, looking inquiry, mistrusting speech.
Aunt M'riar used a touch on his arm, and a nod towards the door of the
little parlour, to get safe out of the children's hearing before risking
speech, with that suffocation in her throat. Then when the door was
closed, it came.

"We c-c-couldn't do it, Mo, we c-couldn't do it." Her sobs became a
suppressed wail of despair, which seemed to give relief. Susan Burr had
no other tale to tell, and was inarticulate to the same effect. They
_could_ not break through the panoply of the children's ignorance of
Death, there in the very home of the departed, in the face of every
harbinger of her return.

"Poor old M'riar! You shan't have the telling of 'em." Uncle Mo's
pitying tones were husky in the darkened room; not quite dark, as the
fog was lifting, and the Court's one gas-lamp was perceptible again