the boy Michael come to in it? He'd made a slide
down the middle of the Court, and Uncle Moses prophesied his death on
the gallows! But, dear me, all children make slides--girls as well as
boys. I used to make slides, all by myself, in Scotland."

Granny Marrable's mind ran back seventy years or so. "Yes, indeed, that
is true; and so did I." She nodded towards the chimneyshelf, where the
mill-model stood--Dave's model. "There's the mill where I had my
childhood, and it's there to this day, they tell me, and working. And
the backwater above the dam, it's there, too, I lay, where my sister
Maisie and I made a many slides when it froze over in the winter
weather. And there's me and Maisie in our lilac frocks and white
sun-bonnets. Five-and-forty years ago she died, out in Australia. But
I've not forgotten Maisie."

She could mention Maisie more serenely than Mrs. Prichard, _per contra_,
could mention Phoebe. But, then, think how differently the forty-five
years had been filled out in either case. Maisie had been forced to
_ricordarsi del tempo felice_ through so many years of _miseria_.
Phoebe's journey across the desert of Life had paused at many an oasis,
and their images remained in her mind to blunt the tooth of Memory. The
two ladies at least heard nothing in the old woman's voice that one does
not hear in any human voice when it speaks of events very long past.

Gwen showed an interest in the mill. "You and your sister were very much
alike," she said.

"We were twins," said Granny Marrable. But, as it chanced, Gwen at this
moment looked at her watch, and found it had stopped. She missed the old
woman's last words. When she had satisfied herself that the watch was
still going she found that Granny Marrable's speech had lost its slight
trace of sadness. She had become a mere recorder, _viva voce_. "Maisie
married and went abroad--oh dear, near sixty years ago! She died out
there just after our father--yes, quite forty-five--forty-six years
ago!" Her only conscious suppression was in slurring over the gap
between Maisie's departure and her husband's; for both ladies took her
meaning to be that her sister married to go abroad, and did not return.

It was more conversation-making than curiosity that made Gwen
ask:--"Where was 'abroad'? I mean, where did your sister go?" The old
lady repeated:--"To where she met her death, in Australia.
Five-and-forty years ago. But I have never forgotten Maisie." Gwen,
looking more c