"I THOUGHT I SAW YOU COME UP OUT OF YOUR GRAVE."
"Why, it is only just now," she said, turning to old Mr. Riah, "that I thought I saw you come up out of your grave. You came up through the dark narrow door in the roof, and you were all bent over, and hot and tired; but then you took a breath, and stood up straight, and looked round at the sky, and the wind blew your white beard on your breast, and your life down in the dark was over—until you called him back to life."
Her voice changed as she said these last words with a sudden little snap at Mr. Fledgeby. "Why did you call him back? You are not dead, you know. Go down to life." She pointed one little forefinger, and turned her small head, and shook her bright hair, and looked wonderfully like a small cunning bird of much golden plumage.
As they started to go down, she caught at Mr. Riah's long gown. "Don't be gone long," said she. "Come back and be dead." And they heard the sweet voice following after, more and more faintly, half calling, half singing, "Come up and be dead, come up and be dead."
"My dear," said Jenny that night, when they were at home again and going to bed, "the master is a beast, and he wants to eat up my godmother," which was the little creature's odd way of saying that she felt sure old Mr. Riah worked very hard for very little money under the foxy-faced young man he called his master.