"Nay,"—Daffady shook his head for sympathy,—"it wor a varra poor set-oot, wor Jenny's buryin. Nowt but tay, an sic-like."
Mrs. Mason raised two gaunt hands and let them drop again on her knee.
"I shud ha' thowt they'd ha' bin ashamed," she said. "Jenny's brass ull do 'em noa gude. She wor a fule to leave it to 'un."
Daffady withdrew his pipe again. His lantern-jawed face, furrowed with slow thought, hung over the blaze.
"Aye," he said, "aye. Wal, I've buried three childer—an I'm nobbut a labrin mon—but a thank the Lord I ha buried them aw—wi' ham."
The last words came out with solemnity. Laura, at the other end of the kitchen, turned open-mouthed to look at the pair. Not a feature moved in either face. She sped back into the dairy, and Polly looked up in astonishment.
"What ails tha?" she said.
"Oh, nothing!" said Laura, dashing the merry tears from her eyes. She proceeded to roll up her sleeves, and plunge her hands and arms into the bowl of warm water that Polly had set before her. Meanwhile, Polly, very big and square, much reddened also by the fuss of household work, stood just behind her cousin's shoulder, looking down, half in envy, half in admiration, at the slimness of the white wrists and pretty fingers.
A little later the two girls, all traces of their housework removed, came back into the kitchen. Daffady and Mrs. Mason had disappeared.
"Where is Cousin Elizabeth?" said Laura rather sharply, as she looked round her.