n' is. You mention to Mo, not to
be late, no more than need be. Not to throw away good bedtime!" Mr.
Jerry promised to impress the advantages of early hours, and went his
way. But his reflections on his short interview with Aunt M'riar took
the form of asking himself what had got her, and finding no answer to
the question. Something evidently had, from her manner, for there was
nothing in what she said.

He asked the same question of Uncle Mo, coming away from The Sun, where
they did not wait for the very last tune on the piano, to the disgust of
Mr. Jeffcoat, the proprietor. "What's got Aunt M'riar?" said Uncle Mo,
repeating his words. "Nothin's got Aunt M'riar. She'd up and tell me
fast enough if there was anything wrong. What's put you on that lay,
Jerry?"

"I couldn't name any one thing, Mo. But going by the looks of it, I
should judge there was a screw loose in somebody's wheelbarrow. P'r'aps
I'm mistook. P'r'aps I ain't. S'posing you was to ask her, Mo!--asking
don't cost much."

Uncle Moses seemed to weigh the outlay. "No," he said. "Asking wouldn't
send me to the work'us." And when he had taken leave of his friend at
their sundering-point, he spent the rest of his short walk home in
speculation as to what had set Jerry off about Aunt M'riar. It was with
no misgiving of hearing of anything seriously amiss that he said to her,
as he sat in the little parlour recovering his breath, after walking
rather fast, while she cultured the flame of a candle whose wick had
been cut off short:--"Everything all right, M'riar?" He was under the
impression that he asked in a nonchalant, easy-going manner, and he was
quite mistaken. It was only perfectly palpable that he meant it to be
so, and he who parades his indifference is apt to overreach himself.

Aunt M'riar had been making up her mind that she must tell Mo what she
knew about this man Daverill, at whatever cost to herself. It would have
been much easier had she known much less. Face to face with an
opportunity of telling it, her resolution wavered and her mind,
imperfectly made up, favoured postponement. To-morrow would do. "Ho
yes," said she. "Everything's all right, Mo. Now you just get to bed.
Time enough, I say, just on to midnight!" But her manner was defective
and her line of argument ill-chosen. Its result was to produce in her
hearer a determination to discover what had got her. Because it was
evident that Jerry was right, and that _something_ had.

"One of