you know?"

"Zummat o' fits, I hears. Her've had 'em this six year, on and
off."

"I suppose it's dangerous. I mean she isn't likely to get well?"

"'Tis in the Lord's hands," replied the constable, "but her's
that bad wi' pain, at times, 'twould be a mussy if 'twould plaase
He to tak' her out on't."

"Perhaps she mightn't think so," said Tom, superciliously; he was
not in the mind to agree with anyone. The constable looked at him
solemnly for a moment, and then said--

"Her's been a God-fearin' woman from her youth up, and her's had
a deal o' trouble. Thaay as the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and
'tisn't such as thaay as is afeared to go afore Him."

"Well, I never found that having troubles made people a bit more
anxious to get 'out on't,' as you call it," said Tom. "It don't
seem to me as you can 'a had much o' trouble to judge by," said
the constable, who was beginning to be nettled by Tom's manner.

"How can you tell that?"

"Leastways 'twould be whoam-made, then," persisted the constable;
"and ther's a sight o' odds atween whoam made troubles and thaay
as the Lord sends."

"So there may; but I may have seen both sorts for anything you
can tell."

"Nay, nay; the Lord's troubles leaves His marks."

"And you don't see any of _them_ in my face, eh?"

The constable jerked his head after his own peculiar fashion, but
declined to reply directly to this interrogatory. He parried it
by one of his own.

"In the doctorin' line, make so bould?"

"No," said Tom. "You don't seem to have such very good eyes,
after all."

"Oh, I seed you wasn't old enough to be doin' for yourself, like;
but I thought you med ha' been a 'sistant, or summat."

"Well, then, you're just mistaken," said Tom, considerably
disgusted at being taken for a country doctor's assistant.

"I ax your pill-don," said the constable. "But if you beant in
the doctorin' line, what be gwine to Widow Winburn's for, make so
bould?"

"That's my look out, I suppose," said Tom, almost angrily.
"That's the house, isn't it?" and he pointed to the cottage
already described, at the corner of Englebourn Copse.

"Ees."

"Good day, then."

"Good day," muttered the constable, not at all satisfied with
this abrupt close of the conversation, but too unready to prolong
it. He went on his own way slowly, looking back often, till he
saw the door open, after which he seemed better satisfied, and
ambled out of sight.

"The old snuffler!" thought Tom, as b