luded the cook was flinging at Mr. Cheese's window in a temper. As
she certainly was, giving Mr. Jan some hard words in the process. Just
as Lady Verner had never been able to inculcate suavity on Jan, so Dr.
West had found it a hopeless task to endeavour to make Jan understand
that, in medical care, the rich should be considered before the poor.
Take, for example, that _bete noire_ of Deerham just now, Alice Hook,
and put her by the side of a born duchess; Jan would have gone to the
one who had most need of him, without reference to which of the two it
might be. Evidently there was little hope for Jan.

Jan, with his long legs, outstripped the stooping and hard-worked
labouring man. In at the door and up the stairs he went, into the
sleeping room.

Did you ever pay a visit to a room of this social grade? If not, you
will deem the introduction of this one highly coloured. Had Jan been a
head and shoulders shorter, he might have been able to stand up in the
lean-to attic, without touching the lath and plaster of the roof. On a
low bedstead, on a flock mattress, lay the mother and two children,
about eight and ten. How they made room for Hook also, was a puzzle.
Opposite to it, on a straw mattress, slept three sons, grown up, or
nearly so; between these beds was another straw mattress where lay Alice
and her sister, a year younger; no curtains, no screens, no anything.
All were asleep, with the exception of the mother and Alice; the former
could not rise from her bed; Alice appeared too ill to rise from hers.
Jan stooped his head and entered.

A few minutes, and he set himself to arouse the sleepers. They might
make themselves comfortable in the kitchen, he told them, for the rest
of the night: he wanted room in the place to turn himself round, and
they must go out of it. And so he bundled them out. Jan was not given to
stand upon ceremony. But it is not a pleasant room to linger in, so we
will leave Jan to it.

It was pleasanter at Lady Verner's. Enough of air, and light, and
accommodation there. But even in that desirable residence it was not all
_couleur de rose_. Vexations intrude into the most luxurious home,
whatever may be the superfluity of room, the admirable style of the
architecture; and they were just now agitating Deerham Court.

On the morning which rose on the above night--as lovely a morning as
ever September gave us--Lady Verner and Lucy Tempest received each a
letter from India. Both were from Colon