"No," said Aunt Louisa in her pin-muted voice, "'twouldn't be decent to go before 'er Maker wi'out laigs. But I didn't know she 'ad 'em. Wherever's she kept 'em to?"
"Well, she got 'em in a box, salted away. She brought 'em 'ome from the 'orspital and they'm in the li'l parlour in the cupboard. I think we'd better get'n out against Mr. 'Enwood come to measure 'er."
"She'll make a vitty corpse, after all," said Mrs. Con, who had been haunted by the thought of that legless body and who would now be able to think of her cousin as made whole by the restoration of the carefully preserved limbs. Her person, large and soft, the person of a big eater and small doer, heaved in a gusty sigh of satisfaction. "Nights I've lied thinkin' when she die there'd 'av to be something put in the coffin to keep 'er from boompin' up and down."
Mrs. Bate got up. "I'll just put on 'er cap and then you can all come in and see 'er. She's the fines' body I've set forth for many a day. Some fat body, too, she be, some 'andsome body, fat as butter."
Before the others could take advantage of this invitation which, with the exception of Mrs. Con they were naturally eager to do, Leadville's step was heard on the linhay flags and he at once became the centre of interest. The corpse could wait but this was their first glimpse of the bereaved. Curiosity was veiled by industry and politeness and like the fates they snipped and stitched.
Fresh from his sleep in the sunshine and ready to do his part, he paused, on his way in, to break his fast. As he ate, the whirr of the sewing-machine caught his ear and at once some of his briskness passed.
"Well, Mrs. Tom, I'm come back," he cried, pulling open the little door. To him, the room, always dark, seemed full of soberly clad women and, between them, he made out masses of black material which, overflowing chairs and tables, lay in discreet heaps on the clean blue floor. The women glanced up with conventional murmurs and he perceived that, for the nonce, it was they who were at home there and not he. "What is there for me to do?"
Isolda put down the child's frock on which she was at work. "I think you better go into Stowe and see Mr. Henwood and tell'n to come out and measure 'er for 'er coffin."
Leadville viewed the task set him with disfavour. "I can't abide that job."
"It bain't a bit of good for 'ee to talk like that, my dear," said Mrs. Tom, as to a fractious child, "you know it's got to be done. As well 'av it done first as last."