trial to customary beliefs. Heaven and hell seemed alike inconceivable
when there was no phantom grave-body to make trial of them. One woman
after another declared that it would send her mad if it ever happened to
any belonging of hers. "But it's a mercy there's no one to fret--nobbut
t' little gell--an she's too sma'." There was much talk about the young
lady that had come home with her--"a nesh pretty-lukin yoong creetur"--to
whom little Nelly clung strangely--no doubt because she and her father
had been so few weeks in Froswick that there had been scarcely time for
them to make friends of their own. The child held the lady's gown in her
clutch perpetually, Mr. Dixon reported--would not lose sight of her for a
moment. But the lady herself was only a visitor to Froswick, was being
just taken through the works, when the accident happened, and was to
leave the town by an evening train--so it was said. However, there would
be those left behind who would look after the poor lamb--Mrs. Starr, who
had taken the tea to the works, and Mrs. Dixon, the Overtons' landlady.
They were in the house now; but the lady had begged everyone else to keep
outside.

The summer evening crept on.

At half-past six Polly with Hubert behind her climbed the stairs of the
little house. Polly pushed open the door of the back room, and Hubert
peered over her shoulder.

Inside was a small workman's room, with a fire burning, and the window
wide open. There were tea-things on the table; a canary bird singing
loudly in a cage beside the window; and a suit of man's clothes with a
clean shirt hanging over a chair near the fire.

In a rocking-chair by the window lay the little girl--a child of about