it was with him when we took him up, and he never so much as lifted
an eyelid, but died at the turn of the night. Heaven rest his soul!'

"Heaven rest his soul!" echoed Susan, and the ladies around chimed in.
They had come for one excitement, and here was another.

"There! See but what I said!" quoth Mrs. Rotherford, uplifting a
skinny finger to emphasise that the poor little flotsome had already
brought evil.

"Nay," said the portly wife of a merchant, "begging your pardon, this
may be a fat instead of a lean sorrow. Leaves the poor gentleman
heirs, Mrs. Talbot?"

"Oh no!" said Susan, with tears in her eyes. "His wife died two years
back, and her chrisom babe with her. He loved her too well to turn his
mind to wed again, and now he is with her for aye." And she covered
her face and sobbed, regardless of the congratulations of the
merchant's wife, and exclaiming, "Oh! the poor old lady!"

"In sooth, mistress," said Nathanael, who had stood all this time as if
he had by no means emptied his budget of ill news, "poor old madam fell
down all of a heap on the floor, and when the wenches lifted her, they
found she was stricken with the dead palsy, and she has not spoken, and
there's no one knows what to do, for the poor old squire is like one
distraught, sitting by her bed like an image on a monument, with the
tears flowing down his old cheeks. 'But,' says he to me, 'get you to
Hull, Nat, and take madam's palfrey and a couple of sumpter beasts, and
bring my good daughter Talbot back with you as fast as she and the
babes may brook.' I made bold to say, 'And Master Richard, your
worship?' then he groaned somewhat, and said, 'If my son's ship be come
in, he must do as her Grace's service permits, but meantime he must
spare us his wife, for she is sorely needed here.' And he looked at
the bed so as it would break your heart to see, for since old Nurse
Took hath been doited, there's not been a wench about the house that
can do a hand's turn for a sick body."

Susan knew this was true, for her mother-in-law had been one of those
bustling, managing housewives, who prefer doing everything themselves
to training others, and she was appalled at the idea of the probable
desolation and helplessness of the bereaved household.

It was far too late to start that day, even had her husband been at
home, for the horses sent for her had to rest. The visitors would fain
have extracted some more particulars about the old squire'