ill be very old, too, Mrs. Picture. I call to mind now, that
the dear child couldn't tell _me_ from Mrs. Picture when he first came,
by reason of the white hair. So she may be nigh my own age."

Gwen was looking puzzled over something in the letter. "'Out to sea in a
ship!'" she repeated. "I wonder, has 'decks' anything to do with
that?... N-n-no!--it must be 'desk.' It can't be anything else." It was,
of course, Mrs. Prichard's literal acceptance of Dave's pronunciation.
But it had a nautical air for the moment, and seemed somehow in keeping
with that old lady's marine experience.

Widow Thrale then came in, bearing an armful of purchases from the
village. With her were two convalescents; who must have nearly done
convalescing, they shouted so. The ogress abated them when she found her
granny had august company, and removed them to sup apart with an anaemic
eight-year-old little girl; in none of whom Sister Nora showed more than
a lukewarm interest, comparing them all disparagingly with Dave. In
fact, she was downright unkind to the anaemic sample, likening her to
knuckle of veal. It was true that this little girl had a stye in her
eye, and two corkscrew ringlets, and lacked complete training in the use
of the pocket-handkerchief. All the ogress seemed to die out of Widow
Thrale in her presence, and the visitors avoided contact with her
studiously. She seemed malignant, too, driving her chin like a knife
into the _nuque_ of one of the small boys, who kicked her shins
justifiably. However, they all went away to convalesce elsewhere, as
soon as their guardian the ogress had transplanted from a side-table a
complete tea-possibility; a tray that might be likened to Minerva,
springing fully armed from the head of Jove. "Your ladyship will take
tea," said Granny Marrable, in a voice that betrayed a doubt whether the
Norman Conquest could consistently take tea with Gurth the Swineherd.

Her ladyship had no such misgiving. But an aristocratic prejudice
dictated a reservation:--"Only it must be poured straight off before it
gets like ink.... Oh, stop!--it's too black already. A little hot water,
thank you!" And then Mrs. Thrale, in cold blood, actually stood her
Rockingham teapot on the hob; to become an embittered deadly poison, a
slayer of the sleep of all human creatures above a certain standard of
education. When all other class distinctions are abolished, this one
will remain, like the bones of the Apteryx.

"We'll pay