of the shut-in space, that is, from the
coroner's high dais right across to the opening in the wooden barrier,
was an ink-splashed table at which, when she had first taken her
place, there had been sitting three men busily sketching; but now
every seat at the table was occupied by tired, intelligent-looking
men, each with a notebook, or with some loose sheets of paper,
before him.

"Them's the reporters," whispered her friend. "They don't like
coming till the last minute, for they has to be the last to go.
At an ordinary inquest there are only two--maybe three--attending,
but now every paper in the kingdom has pretty well applied for a
pass to that reporters' table."

He looked consideringly down into the well of the court. "Now let
me see what I can do for you--"

Then he beckoned to the coroner's officer: "Perhaps you could put
this lady just over there, in a corner by herself? Related to a
relation of the deceased, but doesn't want to be--" He whispered
a word or two, and the other nodded sympathetically, and looked at
Mrs. Bunting with interest. "I'll put her just here," he muttered.
"There's no one coming there to-day. You see, there are only seven
witnesses--sometimes we have a lot more than that."

And he kindly put her on a now empty bench opposite to where the
seven witnesses stood and sat with their eager, set faces, ready
--aye, more than ready--to play their part.

For a moment every eye in the court was focused on Mrs. Bunting, but
soon those who had stared so hungrily, so intently, at her, realised
that she had nothing to do with the case. She was evidently there
as a spectator, and, more fortunate than most, she had a "friend at
court," and so was able to sit comfortably, instead of having to
stand in the crowd.

But she was not long left in isolation. Very soon some of the
important-looking gentlemen she had seen downstairs came into the
court, and were ushered over to her seat while two or three among
them, including the famous writer whose face was so familiar that
it almost seemed to Mrs. Bunting like that of a kindly acquaintance,
were accommodated at the reporters' table.

"Gentlemen, the Coroner."

The jury stood up, shuffling their feet, and then sat down again;
over the spectators there fell a sudden silence.

And then what immediately followed recalled to Mrs. Bunting, for the
first time, that informal little country inquest of long ago.

First came the "Oyez! Oyez!" the old Norma