"If there isn't there will be. There! I can see it."

"You see Mr. Parish's high 'at a driving in his wagonette."

It _was_ Mr. Parish's high hat. When he put the black top on his
wagonette it looked like a hearse.

They started up Ley Street towards Mr. Spall's cottage.

Jenny said, "I thought you was going to be such a good girl when Master
Roddy went to school. But I declare if you're not twice as tiresome."

Roddy had gone to Chelmsted after midsummer. She had to go for walks on
the roads with Jenny now at the risk of meeting funerals.

This week they had been every day to Ilford to call at Mr. Spall's
cottage or at Benny's, the draper's shop in the High Street.

Jenny didn't believe that a big girl, nine next birthday, could really be
afraid of funerals. She thought you were only trying to be tiresome. She
said you could stop thinking about funerals well enough when you wanted.
You did forget sometimes when nice things happened; when you went to see
Mrs. Farmer's baby undressed, and when Isabel Batty came to tea. Isabel
was almost a baby. It felt nice to lift her and curl up her stiff,
barley-sugar hair and sponge her weak, pink silk hands. And there were
things that you could do. You could pretend that you were not Mary
Olivier but somebody else, that you were grown-up and that the baby and
Isabel belonged to you and were there when they were not there. But all
the time you knew there would be a funeral on the road somewhere, and