Toby giggled explosively.
"And the cruel part was," continued Mrs. Murchison, "that throughout life she was afraid of the dark, in which the blowing out of the candles naturally left her. So, between her dread of a conflagration and her terror of the dark, it was out of the fireplace into the fire."
"Frying-pan, mother," said Lily.
"Maybe, dear; I thought it was fireplace. But it's six of one and half a dozen of another. Poor Mommer! she had a very nervous and excitable temperament, with sudden bursts of anger. At such times she would take out her false teeth—she suffered from early decay—and dash them to the ground, though it meant slops till they got repaired. Most excitable she was."
"Very trying," said Toby rather tremulously.
"No, we didn't find her trying, Toby," said this excellent lady. "We were very fond of her. Poor dear Mommer!"
She sighed heavily, with memory-dim eyes, and Toby's laughter died in his mouth. Mrs. Murchison got up.
"Well, I shall put on my hat," she said, "and come out with you both. I brought an evening paper down with me, but there is nothing in it, except that there has been a terrible tomato in the West Indies, destroying five villages—tornado, I should say—and great loss of life."
She went out of the room to fetch her hat, and Lily and Toby were left alone. Toby looked furtively up, wondering what he should meet in Lily's eye. Her face, like his, was struggling for gravity, and both shook with hardly-suppressed laughter. Neither could speak, and they turned feebly away from each other, Toby leaning with trembling shoulder on the mantelpiece, and Lily biting her lip as she looked helplessly out over lawn and river. Now and then there would come from one or other a sobbing breath, and neither dared look round. Once Lily half turned towards her husband, to find him half turned towards her with a crimson strangling face, and both looked hastily away again. The plight was desperate, and after a moment Lily said, in a choking, baritone voice:
"Toby, stop laughing."