"Hello!" he called. "Hello! What yu a-doin' here? Now then! Come out o' that, yu young warmint; don't, I'll hide ye."
The figure lying by the dead woman slipped to the ground. It wore a brown frock and a crumpled white overall trimmed with lace.
"Hello!" the man said again. He looked stupidly at his little daughter, then pulled aside the sheet which covered his wife.
In the waxen face, with lids still half-open above the dull eyes, with lips drawn back to show the gums, was little change. Beneath the chin a large white bow of coarse muslin had been tied. It was designed to hide the thinness of the throat, but gave, besides, a dreadful air of smartness to the poor corpse. Above the sunken chest the arms were crossed, but, over them, and over the thin hands, in a burning, shining mass of resplendent colour lay—
The husband held the lamp nearer, and bent his dull, red face to peer closer at the scattered heap—the miracle of bronze and red, red living gold. "Hello!" he said again, then moved the lamp to let its light shine on his daughter's face, and stared at her.
"Hello!"
"I ha'n't got no one now to carl my ringolets," the child sobbed, her voice rising high in the scale of rebellious misery; "my ringolets ain't no good to me no more. I ha' cut 'em off; mother, she kin have 'em. They ain't no good ter me."
The glare of the lamp held awry was upon the broad red face of the girl with the streaming, yellow eyes, with the unevenly cropped head.
"I thought yu was the boy Jim," her father said.