"MRS. FLANDERS"--"Poor Betty Flanders"--"Dear Betty"--"She's very
attractive still"--"Odd she don't marry again!" "There's Captain Barfoot
to be sure--calls every Wednesday as regular as clockwork, and never
brings his wife."

"But that's Ellen Barfoot's fault," the ladies of Scarborough said. "She
don't put herself out for no one."

"A man likes to have a son--that we know."

"Some tumours have to be cut; but the sort my mother had you bear with
for years and years, and never even have a cup of tea brought up to you
in bed."

(Mrs. Barfoot was an invalid.)

Elizabeth Flanders, of whom this and much more than this had been said
and would be said, was, of course, a widow in her prime. She was half-
way between forty and fifty. Years and sorrow between them; the death of
Seabrook, her husband; three boys; poverty; a house on the outskirts of
Scarborough; her brother, poor Morty's, downfall and possible demise--
for where was he? what was he? Shading her eyes, she looked along the
road for Captain Barfoot--yes, there he was, punctual as ever; the
attentions of the Captain--all ripened Betty Flanders, enlarged her
figure, tinged her face with jollity, and flooded her eyes for no reason
that any one could see perhaps three times a day.

True, there's no harm in crying for one's husband, and the tombstone,
though plain, was a solid piece of work, and on summer's days when the