“Aye, it was Jane Jones’s, but Gwen says she stood nearer the Wynne’s plot in the graveyard.”
Griffith’s eyes sought the cats, and he pulled his side-whiskers thoughtfully. “Ye cannot tell which it’ll be, now can ye?”
“No, you cannot, but I’ve my opinion it’ll be Jane Jones, she’s more gone in the face. I must be goin’; Betty, will you be comin’ with me; I promised Gwen I’d step in for a neighbourly look at the Joneses, an’ perhaps I can help her decide which it’ll be.”
First they went to Jane Wynne’s; they found her propped up in bed surrounded with a circle of interested neighbours. The doctor had just gone and the minister was on his way in. Old Marslie Powell curtsied gravely to the minister as he entered. “Dear love, she’ll not last the night.”
“Aye, aye,” chorused the circle of neighbours, “her breath’s failin’ now.”
But in Jane Wynne’s eye there was a live coal of intelligence; she beckoned imperiously with her scrawny old hand to the young minister.
“If I do, ye’ll put it on the stone?” she whispered eagerly.
“Yes, Jane, Hugh will have it done.”
“She’s not long,” said Olwyn to Betty; “let us be goin’ to Jane Jones’s.”