She'd caught it first, and Frank,
who was as tender o'er her as her own mother could ha' been, had
nursed her till he'd caught it himsel; and she expecting her down-
lying* everyday. Well, t' make a long story short, old Jennings and
I went up by that night's coach. So you see, Mary, that was the way
I got to London."
*Down-lying; lying in.
"But how was your daughter when you got there?" asked Mary
anxiously.
"She were at rest, poor wench, and so were Frank. I guessed as much
when I see'd th' landlady's face, all swelled wi' crying, when she
opened th' door to us. We said, 'Where are they?' and I knew they
were dead, fra' her look; but Jennings didn't, as I take it; for
when she showed us into a room wi' a white sheet on th' bed, and
underneath it, plain to be seen, two still figures, he screeched out
as if he'd been a woman.
"Yet he'd other children and I'd none. There lay my darling, my
only one. She were dead, and there were no one to love me, no, not
one. I disremember* rightly what I did; but I know I were very
quiet, while my heart were crushed within me.
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