through its remains. "Poor old M'riar! You shan't tell 'em--nor yet
Susan Burr. _I'll_ tell 'em, myself." But his heart sank at the prospect
of his task, and he was fain to get a little respite--of only a few
hours. "Look ye here, M'riar, I don't see no harm to come of standing of
'em over till we know. Maybe, as like as not, we'll have a letter in the
morning."

But Uncle Mo was not to have the telling of the children.

Once it was clearly understood that the news was to be kept back, it
became easier to exist, provisionally. Grief, demanding expression,
gnaws less when silence becomes a duty. It was almost a relief to Susan
Burr to have to be dry-eyed, on compulsion; far, far easier than to have
to explain her tears to the young people. She went upstairs to them,
mustering, as she went, a demeanour that would not be hypocritical, yet
would safeguard her from suspicion of a hidden secret. She had been a
long way, and was feeling her foot. That covered the position. Further,
the children might stop upstairs a bit longer, if good. Dave was not to
go out. Uncle Mo had said so. If Uncle Mo did go round to The Sun
to-day, it would be after little boys and girls were abed and asleep.
Mrs. Burr made her attitude easier to herself by affecting a Draconic
demeanour. It was due to her foot, Dave and Dolly decided.

The unconscious children accepted the fog as all-sufficient to account
for the household's gloom, and never knew how heavily the hours went by
for its older members. Bedtime came, and the fog did not go, or, at
least, went no further than to leave the gaslamp as Dave had seen it,
just visible across the Court, or discernible from the archway at a
favourable fluctuation. Susan Burr stepped round to Mrs. Ragstroar's,
alleging anxiety to hear Michael's story again, and some hopes of
further particulars. She may have felt indisposed for the loneliness of
her own room, with that empty chair; and yet that a company of three
would bear reduction, all that called for saying having been said twice
and again.

This was soon after supper; when little boys and girls are abed and
asleep. The little boy in this case was half asleep. He heard his Aunt's
and Uncle's voices get fainter as his own dream-voices came to take
their place, and then came suddenly awake with a start to find Uncle Mo
looming large beside him in the half-dark room. "Made you jump, did I,
old man?" said Uncle Mo, kissing him. "Go to sleep again." Dave did