er not to fret.
"You be easy, M'riar. He shan't come a-nigh _you_. I'll square _him_
fast enough, if he shows up down this Court--you see if I don't!" But
when she reached it, there was still balm in Gilead. For was not Dolly
there, so many fathoms deep in sleep that she might be kissed with
impunity, long enough to bring a relieving force of tears to help the
nightmare-haunted woman in her battle with the past?

As for Mo, his threat towards this convicted miscreant had no connection
with his recent interview with his police-officer friend--no hint of
appeal to Law and Order. The anger that burnt in his heart and sent the
blood to his head was as unsullied, as pure, as any that ever Primeval
Man sharpened flints to satisfy before Law and Order were invented.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW UNCLE MO MADE THE DOOR-CHAIN SECURE, AND A SUNFLOWER LOOKED ON
THE WHILE. HOW AUNT M'RIAR STOPPED HER EARS. A BIT OF UNCLE MO'S
MIND. HOW DOLLY KISSED HIM THROUGH THE DOOR-CRACK, BUT NOT MRS.
BURR. CONCERNING RATS, TO WHICH UNCLE MO TOOK THE OPPOSITE VIEW. OF
ONE, OR SOME, WHICH TRAVELLED OUT TO AUSTRALIA WITH OLD MRS.
PRICHARD. HOW DAVE MET THREE LADIES IN A CARRIAGE, NONE OF WHOM
KISSED HIM. HOW UNCLE MO WENT UPSTAIRS WITH THE CHILDREN, IN
CONNECTION WITH THE RATS HE HAD DISCREDITED, AND STAYED UP QUITE A
TIME. HOW HE INTERVIEWED MR. BARTLETT ABOUT THEM

"You're never fidgeting about _him_?" said Aunt M'riar to Uncle Mo, one
morning shortly after she had told him the story of her marriage. "He's
safe out of the way by now. You may rely on your police-inspectin'
friend to inspect _him_. Didn't he as good as say he was took, Mo?"

"That warn't precisely the exact expression used, M'riar," said Uncle
Mo, who was doing something with a tool-box at the door that opened on
the front-garden that opened on the Court. Dolly was holding his tools,
by permission--only not chisels or gouges, or gimlets, or bradawls, or
anything with an edge to it--and the sunflower outside was watching
them. Uncle Mo was extracting a screw with difficulty, in spite of the
fact that it was all but out already. He now elucidated the cause of
this difficulty, and left the Police Inspector alone. "'Tain't stuck, if
you ask me. I should say there never had been no holt to this screw from
the beginning. But by reason there's no life in the thread, it goes
round and round rayther than come out.... Got it!--wanted a little