“These are th’ ones tha’ must put on,” Martha answered. “ Mr. Craven ordered Mrs. Medlock to get ’em in London. He said, ‘I won’t have a child dressed in black wanderin’ about like a lost soul,’ he said. ‘It’d make the place sadder than it is. Put color on her.’ Mother she said she knew what he meant. Mother always knows what a body means. She doesn’t hold with black hersel’.”

“I hate black things,” said Mary.

The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Martha had “buttoned up” her little sisters and brothers but she had never seen a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own.

“Why doesn’t tha’ put on tha’ own shoes?” she said when Mary quietly held out her foot.