ateson's" dog; occasions when, with
some young person by his side, he had driven at the tail of a baptismal,
nuptial, or funeral cortege. These memories of past grandeur came back
to him with curious poignancy, and for some reason the words kept rising
in his mind: 'For richer or poorer, for better or worser, in health
and in sick places, till death do us part.' But in the midst of the
exaltation of these recollections the old heart beneath his old red
flannel chest-protector--that companion of his exile--twittering faintly
at short intervals, made him look at the woman by his side. He longed to
convey to her some little of the satisfaction he felt in the fact that
this was by no means the low class of funeral it might have been. He
doubted whether, with her woman's mind, she was getting all the comfort
she could out of three four-wheeled cabs and a wreath of lilies. The
seamstress's thin face, with its pinched, passive look, was indeed
thinner, quieter, than ever. What she was thinking of he could not tell.
There were so many things she might be thinking of. She, too, no doubt,
had seen her grandeur, if but in the solitary drive away from the church
where, eight years ago, she and Hughs had listened to the words
now haunting Creed. Was she thinking of that; of her lost youth and
comeliness, and her man's dead love; of the long descent to shadowland;
of the other children she had buried; of Hughs in prison; of the girl
that had "put a spell on him"; or only of the last precious tugs the
tiny lips at rest in the first four-wheeled cab had given at her breast?
Or was she, with a nicer feeling for proportion, reflecting that, had
not people been so kind, she might have had to walk behind a funeral
provided by the parish?

The old butler could not tell, but he--whose one desire now, coupled
with the wish to die outside a workhouse, was to save enough to bury his
own body without the interference of other people--was inclined to think
she must be dwelling on the brighter side of things; and, designing to
encourage her, he said: "Wonderful improvement in these 'ere four-wheel
cabs! Oh dear, yes! I remember of them when they were the shadders of
what they are at the present time of speakin'."

The seamstress answered in her quiet voice: "Very comfortable this is.
Sit still, Stanley!" Her little son, whose feet did not reach the floor,
was drumming his heels against the seat. He stopped and looked at her,
and the old butler ad