“Dear heart alive!” groaned the other sympathetically. “Poor Mr. Griggs! They took it off en after he were dead, I suppose?”
Mrs. Frizzell’s face fell. It was hard, after all, to persevere in the path of rectitude.
“’Ees,” she said faintly. “Leastways, the nurse as sent it on said he were almost gone when she took it off en.”
“Ah-h-h!” groaned the neighbour again. “Well, we do know he be dead, Mrs. Frizzell, don’t we? seein’ as his name were in the paper, and all.”
“Oh, ’ees,” agreed Mrs. Frizzell, still more falteringly.
“And his blood was on the letter,” resumed Mrs. Cross, with a certain gruesome relish, though her eyes were full of tears. “Dear, now, I should like to see it. It ’ud be really summat to see, wouldn’t it?”
“Ah, but my poor Susan, she won’t let nobody look at it,” returned the mother in quick alarm. “She’ve a-got it under her pillow, and she’ve a-got fast hold on’t.”
“Poor young thing! Well, I can understand her feelings—p’r’aps some other day—”
“Nay, don’t think it, Mrs. Cross—don’t look for’t! Says she to I, ‘Mother, you won’t never let no stranger set eyes on this here. ’Twas meant for nobody but me,’ says she, and I do mean to keep it for myself.’ . . . And there’s another,” lamented the poor woman almost in despair.
“Oh, very well, mum; I’m sure I don’t want to put myself forrard where I bain’t wanted,” retorted Mrs. Cross in a tone of offended dignity. “But I thought I mid make so bold as to ax, seein’ as I’ve a-knowed your Susan since she were no bigger than her own blessed orphan child.”