He took the hint, requested an ounce of the best Scotch and Havannah mixed, and while she weighed it, asked her how long she had lived there.
'Twenty-six years, sir,' she answered heartily, 'Old Style. For the New, I don't hold with it nor them that meddle with things above them. I am sure it brought me no profit,' she continued, rubbing her nose. 'I have buried a good husband and two children since they gave it us!'
'Still, I suppose people died Old Style?' the lawyer ventured.
'Well, well, may be.'
'There was a death in this house seventeen years gone this September,' he said, 'if I remember rightly.'
The woman pushed away the snuff and stared at him. 'Two, for the matter of that,' she said sharply. 'But should I remember you?'
'No.'
'Then, if I may make so bold, what is't to you?' she retorted. 'Do you come from Jim Masterson?'
'He is dead,' Mr. Fishwick answered.
She threw up her hands. 'Lord! And he a young man, so to speak! Poor Jim! Poor Jim! It is ten years and more--ay, more--since I heard from him. And the child? Is that dead too?'