was
remarking of it to Mrs. Treadwell,' she said, 'only just afore we come
upstairs, ma'am,' she said, 'that you was one of twins, ma'am,' she
said. And then old Mrs. Prichard she says, 'Ay, to be sure,' she says,
'twins we were--Maisie and Phoebe. Forty-five years ago she died, Phoebe
did,' she says. 'And I've never forgotten Phoebe,' she says. 'Nor yet I
shan't forget Phoebe not if I live to be a hundred!'"

"Goard blind my soul!" Mr. Wix muttered this to himself, and though Aunt
Elizabeth Jane failed to catch the words, she shuddered at the manner of
them. She did not like this Mr. Wix, and wished she had not forgotten
her tortoiseshell spectacles, so as to see better what he was like. The
words she heard him say next had nothing in them to cause a shudder,
though the manner of them showed vexation:--"If that ain't tryin' to a
man's temper! There she was all the time!" It is true he qualified this
last substantive by the adjective the story so often has to leave out,
but it was not very uncommon in those days along the riverside between
Fulham and Kew.

"I thought you said the name was Daverill," said Miss Hawkins, taking
the opportunity to release a curl-paper at a looking-glass behind
bottles. It was just upon time to open, and the barmaid had got her
Sunday out.

"Why the Hell shouldn't the name be Daverill? In course I did! Ask your
pardon for swearing, missis...." This was to the visitor, who had begun
to want to go. "You'll excuse my naming to you all my reasons, but I'll
just mention this one, not to be misunderstood. This here old lady's a
sort of old friend of mine, and when I came back from abroad I says to
myself I'd like to look up old Mrs. Daverill. So I make inquiry, you
see, and my man he tells me--he was an old mate of mine, you see--she's
gone to live at Sevenoaks--do you see?--at Sevenoaks...."

"Ah, I see! I've been at Sevenoaks."

"Well--there she had been and gone away to town again. Then says I,
'What's her address?' So they told me they didn't know, it was so long
agone. But the old woman--_her_ name was Killick, or Forbes was it?--no,
Killick--remembered directing on a letter to Mrs. Daverill, Sapps Court.
And Juliar here she said she'd heard tell of Sapps Court. So I hunted
the place up and found it. Then your Mrs. Wardle's husband--I take it he
was Moses Wardle the heavyweight in my young days--he put me off the
scent because of the name. The only way to make Prichard of her I can
see