Aunt M'riar passed on these stray fragments of old Mrs. Prichard's autobiography to Uncle Mo when he came in from The Rising Sun. The old boy seemed roused to interest by the mention of Van Diemen's Land. "I call to mind," said he, "when I was a youngster, hearing tell of the convicts out in those parts, and how no decent man could live in the place. Hell on Earth, they did say, those that knew." Thereupon old Mrs. Prichard straightway became a problem to Aunt M'riar. If there were none but convicts in Van Diemen's Land, and all Mrs. Prichard's boys were born there, the only chance of the old woman not having been the mother of a convict's children lay in her having been possibly the wife of a gaoler, at the best. And yet--she was such a nice, pretty old thing! Was it conceivable?
Then in subsequent similar interviews Aunt M'riar, inquisitive-like, tried to get further information. But very little was forthcoming beyond the fact that Mrs. Prichard's husband was dead. What supported the convict theory was that his widow never referred to any relatives of his or her own. Mrs. Burr, her companion or concomitant--or at least fellow-lodger--was not uncommunicative, but knew "less than you might expect" about her. Aunt M'riar cultivated this good woman with an eye to information, holding her up--as the phrase is now--at the stairfoot and inveigling her to tea and gossip. She was a garrulous party when you come to know her, was Mrs. Burr; and indeed, short of intimacy, she might have produced the same impression on any person well within hearing.
"Times and again," said she in the course of one such conversation, which had turned on the mystery of Mrs. Prichard's antecedents, "have I thought she was going to let on about her belongings, and never so much as a word! Times and again have I felt my tongue in the roof of my mouth, for curiosity to think what she would say next. And there, will you believe me, missis?--it was no better than so much silence all said and done! Nor it wasn't for want of words, like one sits meanin' a great deal and when it comes to the describin' of it just nowhere! She was by way of keeping something back, and there was I sat waiting for it, and guess-working round like, speculating, you might say, to think what it might be when it come. Thank you, ma'am--not another cup!"