“No, no,” said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless jaws. “No, no, no.”

“We heard her try to tell you what she’d done, and saw you take a paper from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker’s shop,” said the first.

“Yes,” added the second, “and it was a ‘locket and gold ring.’ We found out that, and saw it given you. We were by. Oh! we were by.”

“And we know more than that,” resumed the first, “for she told us often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.”

“Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?” asked Mr. Grimwig with a motion towards the door.