ordained that someone must breathe, and only his mother could choose
the clothes.

It took Mrs. Marston several hours to get ready, and Edward and Martha
were kept busy running up and down. Not that Mrs. Marston's clothes had
to be hunted for or mended--far from it. But there were so many
cupboards to be locked, their keys hidden in drawers, the keys of
which, in their turn, went into more cupboards. When such an
inextricable tangle as no burglar could tackle had been woven, Mrs.
Marston always wanted something out of the first cupboard, and all had
to be done over again. But at last she was achieved. Edward and Martha
stood back and surveyed her with pride, and looked to Hazel for
admiration of their work; but Hazel was too young and too happy to see
either the pathos or the humour of old ladies.

She danced down the steep path with an armful of wraps, at the idea of
wearing which she had made faces.

The path led steeply in a zigzag down one side of the quarry cliff,
where Abel had told Hazel of the cow falling, and where she had felt
drodsome. Once more as she came down with a more and more lagging step,
the same horror came over her.

'I'm frit!' she cried; 'canna we be quick?'

But speed was not in Mrs. Marston. She came clinging to Edward's arm,
very cautiously, like a cat on ice.

Martha, her stout red arms bare, her blue gingham dress and white apron
flying in the wind, was directed to hold on to Mrs. Marston's mantle