’Ain’t I said so more nor wunst?  I swore on the Bible—­there’s the very Bible, under the match-box, agin the winder—­on that very Bible I swore as my port Jenny brought from Wales, an’ as I’ve never popped yit that this pore half-sharp gal should never go wrong through me; an’ then, arter I swore that, my pore Jenny let me alone, an’ I never ’eard ‘er v’ice no more a-cryin’.  “Mother, vi’lets, vi’lets; mother, vi’lets, vi’lets!” An’ many’s the chap as ‘as come leerin’ after ’er as I’ve sent away with a flea in ’is ear.  Cuss ’em all; they’s all bad alike about purty gals, men is.  She’s never comed to no wrong through me.  Didn’t I ammost kill a real sailor capting when I used to live in the East End ’cause he tried to meddle with ‘er?  An’ worn’t that the reason why I left my ’um close to Radcliffe ’Ighway an’ comed ’ere?  Them as killed ’er wur the cussed lot in the studeros.  I’m a dyin’ woman; I’m as hinicent as a new-born babe.  An’ there ain’t nothink o’ ‘ern in this room on’y a pair o’ ole shoes an’ a few rags in that ole trunk under the winder.’

I went to the trunk and raised the lid.  The tattered, stained remains of the very dress she wore when I last saw her in the mist on Snowdon!  But what else?  Pushed into an old worn shoe, which with its fellow lay tossed among the ragged clothes, was a brown stained letter.  I took it out.  It was addressed to ’Miss Winifred Wynne at Mrs. Davies’s.’  Part of the envelope was torn away.  It bore the Graylingham post-mark, and its superscription was in a hand which I did not recognise, and yet it was a hand which seemed half-familiar to me.  I opened it; I read a line or two before I fully realised what it was—­the letter, full of childish prattle, which I had written to Winifred when I was a little boy—­the first letter I wrote to her.

I forgot where I was, I forgot that Sinfi was standing outside the door, till I heard the woman’s voice exclaiming, ’What do you want to set on my bed an’ look at me like that for?—­you ain’t no p’leaceman in plain clothes, so none o’ your larks.  Git off o’ my bed, will ye?  You’ll be a-settin’ on my bad leg an’ a-bustin’ on it in a minit.  Git off my bed, else look another way; them eyes o’ yourn skear me.’

I was sitting on the side of her bed and looking into her face.  ‘Where did you get this?’ I said, holding out the letter.

‘You skears me, a-lookin’ like that,’ said she.  ’I comed by it ‘onest.  One day when she was asleep, I was turnin’ over ’er clothes to see how much longer they would hold together, when I feels a somethink ’ard sewed up in the breast; I rips it open, and it was that letter.  I didn’t put it back in the frock ag’in, ’cause I thought it might be useful some day in findin’ out who she was.  She never missed it.  I don’t think she’d ’ave missed anythink, she wur so oncommon silly.  You ain’t a-goin’ to pocket it, air you?’