you no medicine. With
regard to the chest, the single definite point, you know what precautions
to take; as to the nervous trouble, do not discuss, ponder, or even
directly attack, but turn the position, if I may so speak, by work and a
determination to be of some use. If you were tempted by what you call
wicked thoughts you would not nurse them. It is a great pity that people
are so narrow in their notions of what wicked thoughts are. Every
thought which maims you is wicked, horribly wicked, I call it. By the
way, going to another subject, that poor girl, Phoebe Crowhurst, who
lived at your house, is very ill again. She would like to see you."

Catharine left, and Mrs. Furze came in.

"Has anything unsettled your daughter lately?"

"No, nothing particular."

She thought of Tom, but to save Catharine's life she would not have
acknowledged that it was possible for a Catchpole to have power to
disturb a Furze. Had it been Mr. Colston now, the case would have been
different.

"She needs care, but there is nothing serious the matter with her. She
ought to go away, but I understand she has no friends at a distance with
whom she can stay. Give her a little wine."

"Any medicine?"

"No, none; I should like to see her again soon; good morning."

Phoebe's home was near Abchurch, and Catharine went over to Abchurch to
see her, not without remonstrance on the part of Mrs. Furze, Phoebe
having been discharged in disgrace. Her father was an agricultural
labourer, and lived in a little four-roomed, whitewashed cottage about a
mile and a half out of the village. The living-room faced the
north-east, the door opening direct on the little patch of garden, so
that in winter, when the wind howled across the level fields, it was
scarcely warmer indoors than outside, and rags and dish-clouts had to be
laid on the door-sill to prevent the entrance of the snow and rain. At
the back was a place, half outhouse, half kitchen, which had once had a
brick floor, but the bricks had disappeared. Upstairs, over the living-
room, was a bedroom, with no fireplace, and a very small casement window,
where the mother and three children slept, the oldest a girl of about
fourteen, the second a boy of twelve, and the third a girl of three or
four, for the back bedroom over the outhouse had been given up to Phoebe
since she was ill. The father slept below on the floor. Phoebe's room
also had no fireplace, and great patches of plaster h