ned his face to the light, by the chin. "What's the child
been at?" said she.

"The boys had some corks," was Dave's explanation. Nothing further
seemed to be required; Uncle Mo merely remarking: "It'll come off with
soap." However, there was some doubt about the identity of these
carriage ladies. Was one of them the original lady of the rings; who had
taken Dave for a drive or _vice versa_. "Not her!" said Dave; and went
on shaking his head so long to give his statement weight, that Aunt
M'riar abruptly requested him to stop, as her nervous system could not
bear the strain. It was enough, she said, to make her eyes come out by
the roots.

"She must have been somebody else. She couldn't have been nobody," said
Uncle Mo cogently. "Spit it out, old chap, Who was she?"

It was easy to say who she was; the strain of attestation had turned on
who she wasn't. Dave became fluent:--"Whoy, the loydy what was a
cistern, and took me in the roylwoy troyne and in the horse-coach to
Granny Marrowbone." For he had never quite dissociated Sister Nora from
ball-taps and plumbings. He added after reflection:--"Only not dressed
up like then!"

At this point Dolly, whose preoccupation about those rats had stood,
between her and a reasonable interest in Dave's adventure, struck in
noisily and rudely with disjointed particulars about them, showing a
poor capacity for narrative, and provoking Uncle Mo to tickling her with
a view to their suppression. Aunt M'riar seized the opportunity to
capture Dave and subject him to soap and water at the sink.

As soon as the boys' corks, or the effect of using them after ignition
as face-pigments, had become a thing of the past, Dave and Dolly were
ready to pay their promised visit to Mrs. Prichard. Uncle Mo suggested
that he might act as their convoy as far as the top-landing. This was a
departure from precedent, as stair-climbing was never very welcome to
Uncle Mo. But Aunt M'riar consented, the more readily that she was all
behind with her work. Uncle Mo not only went up with the children, but
stayed up quite a time with the old lady and Mrs. Burr. When he came
down he did not refer to his conversation with them, but went back to
Dave's encounter with his aristocratic friends in the street.

"The lady that sighted our boy out," said he, "she'll be Miss
What's-her-name that come on at the Hospital--her with the clean white
tucker...." This referred to a vaguely recollected item of the costume
in