onct th' change set in, an' it coom back as loud as ivver."
She lifted her hands, beckoning with crooked fingers.
"Coom tha here," she commanded.
Rachel Ffrench went to her slowly. She had no color left, and all her hauteur could not steady her voice.
"What do you want?" she asked, standing close beside the bed.
For a few seconds there was silence, in which the large eyes wandered from the border of her rich dress to the crown of her hair. Then Granny Dixon spoke out:
"Wheer'st flower " she cried. "Tha'st getten it on thee again. I con smell it."
It was true that she wore it at her throat as she had done before. A panic of disgust took possession of her as she recollected it. It was as if they two were somehow bound together by it. She caught at it with tremulous fingers, and would have flung it away, but it fell from her uncertain clasp upon the bed, and she would not have touched it for worlds.
"Gi' it to me!" commanded Granny Dixon.
"Pick it up for her," she said, turning to Mrs. Briarley, and it was done, and the shrivelled fingers held it and the old eye devoured it.
"He used to wear 'em i' his button-hole," proclaimed the Voice, "an' he wur a han'some chap—seventy year ago."
"Did you send for me to tell me that " demanded Rachel Ffrench.
Granny Dixon turned on her pile of pillows.
"Nay," she said, "an' I'm—forgettin'."
There was a gasp between the two last words, as if suddenly her strength was failing her.
