"

"Well, if it would have killed you," said Willy, "there was another
night-gown left."

"If you're going to talk that way," said Miss Shott, "I might as well
go. I supposed that when I came here I would at least have been treated
civilly!"

CHAPTER XVI

MR. BURKE MAKES A CALL

Mrs. Cliff now began her life as a rich woman. The Thorpedykes were
established in the new building; her carriage and horses, with a
coachman in plain livery, were seen upon the streets of Plainton; she
gave dinners and teas, and subscribed in a modestly open way to
appropriate charities; she extended suitable aid to the members of Mrs.
Ferguson's family, both living and departed; and the fact that she was
willing to help in church work was made very plain by a remark of Miss
Shott, who, upon a certain Sunday morning at the conclusion of services,
happened to stop in front of Mrs. Cliff, who was going out of the
church.

"Oh," said Miss Shott, suddenly stepping very much to one side, "I
wouldn't have got in your way if I'd remembered that it was you who pays
the new choir!"

Mr. Burke established himself in the Thorpedyke house, which he
immediately repaired from top to bottom; but although he frequently
repeated to himself and to his acquaintances that he had now set up
housekeeping in just the way that he had always wished for, with plenty
of servants to do everything just as he wanted it done, he was not happy
nevertheless. He felt the loss of the stirring occupation which had so
delighted him, and his active mind continually looked right and left for
something to do.

He spoke with Mrs. Cliff in regard to the propriety of proposing to the
Thorpedykes that he should build an addition to their house, declaring
that such an addition would make the old mansion ever so much more
valuable, and as to the cost, he would arrange that so that they would
never feel the payment of it. But this suggestion met with no
encouragement, and poor Burke was so hard put to it for something to
occupy his mind that one day he asked Mrs. Cliff if she had entirely
given up her idea of employing some of her fortune for the benefit of
the native Peruvians, stating that if she wanted an agent to go down
there and to attend to that sort of thing, he believed he would be glad
to go himself.

But Mrs. Cliff did not intend to send anything to the native Peruvians.
According to the arrangements that Captain Horn had made for their
benefit they would ha