"Anybody could tell w'en you're dead," said Chook.
"Why, 'ow?" cried Mrs Partridge, eagerly.
"Yer'll stop gassin' about yerself," cried Chook, roughly.
Mrs Partridge started to smile, and then stopped. It dawned slowly on her mind that she was insulted, and she rose to her feet.
"Thank's fer yer nasty remark," she cried. "That's all the thanks I get fer comin' to give a 'elpin' 'and. But I know when I'm not wanted."
"Yer don't," said Pinkey, "or yer'd 'ave gone 'ours ago."
Mrs Partridge turned to go, the picture of offended dignity, when her eyes fell on an apparition in the doorway, and she quailed. It was William, left safely by the fireside for the night, and now glowering, not at her as she swiftly divined, but at the hat with the drooping feathers, twenty years too young for her face. For the first time in her life she lost her nerve, but with wonderful presence of mind, she smiled in her agony.
"Why, there you are, William," she cried. "Yer gave me quite a start. I was just tryin' on Elizabeth's new 'at, to see if it suited me."
As she spoke, she tore out the hatpins with feverish dexterity, and thrust the hat into Pinkey's astonished hand.
"Take it, yer little fool," she whispered, savagely.