ODOUR OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS

"Lay th' stretcher at th' side," snapped the manager,
an' put 'im on th' cloths. Mind now, mind ! Look you
now ---- !"

One of the men had knocked off a vase of chrysanthemums.
He stared awkwardly, then they set down the stretcher. Eliza-
beth did not look at her husband. As soon as she could get in
the room, she went and picked up the broken vase and the
flowers.

"Wait a minute !" she said.

The three men waited in silence while she mopped up the
water with a duster.

"Eh, what a job, what a job, to be sure !" the manager
was saying, rubbing his brow with trouble and perplexity.
"Never knew such a thing in my life, never ! They'd no
business to ha' left 'im. I never knew such a thing in my life !
Fell over him clean as a whistle, an' shut him in. Not ten feet
of space, there wasn't -- yet it never bruised him."

He looked down at the dead man, lying serene, half naked,
all grimed with coal-dust.

" ' 'Sphyxiated,' the doctor said. " I never knew anything
like it. It seems as if it was done o' purpose. Clean over him,
an' shut 'im in, like a vault " -- he made a sweeping gesture with
his hand.

"It wor that !" corroborated one of the men.

They forced the horror of the thing upon the woman's
imagination.

"Steady, Missis!" said the manager. "It's a bad job, I
know it is, but ---- "

Then they heard the girl's voice upstairs calling shrilly :
"Mother, mother -- who is it ? Mother, who is it ?"

Elizabeth hurried to the foot of the stairs and opened the
door :

"Go to sleep !" she commanded sharply. "What are you
shouting about? Go to sleep at once -- there's nothing ---- "

Then she began to mount the stairs. They could hear her
on the boards, and on the plaster floor of the little bedroom.
They could hear her distinctly :

"What's the matter now ? -- what's the matter with you,
silly thing ?" -- her voice was much gentler than when she had
called at the foot of the stairs.

"I thought it was some men come," said the plaintive voice
of the child.

"They only brought your father home. There's nothing
to make a fuss about. Go to sleep now, like a good child."

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