bills; and Mrs. Parker's remembrance of her friend at Dovercourt
had been that of a fine lady in bright apparel. Now a black
shade,--something almost like a dark ghost,--glided into the room,
and Mrs. Parker forgot her recent injury. Emily came forward and
offered her hand, and was the first to speak. "I have had a great
sorrow since we met," she said.

"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Lopez. I don't think there is anything left in the
world now except sorrow."

"I hope Mr. Parker is well. Will you not sit down, Mrs. Parker?"

"Thank you, ma'am. Indeed, then, he is not well at all. How should he
be well? Everything,--everything has been taken away from him." Poor
Emily groaned as she heard this. "I wouldn't say a word against them
as is gone, Mrs. Lopez, if I could help it. I know it is bad to bear
when him who once loved you isn't no more. And perhaps it is all the
worse when things didn't go well with him, and it was, maybe, his own
fault. I wouldn't do it, Mrs. Lopez, if I could help it."

"Let me hear what you have to say," said Emily, determined to suffer
everything patiently.

"Well;--it is just this. He has left us that bare that there is
nothing left. And that, they say, isn't the worst of all,--though
what can be worse than doing that, how is a woman to think? Parker
was that soft, and he had that way with him of talking, that he has
talked me and mine out of the very linen on our backs."

"What do you mean by saying that that is not the worst?"

"They've come upon Sexty for a bill for four hundred and
fifty,--something to do with that stuff they call Bios,--and Sexty
says it isn't his name at all. But he's been in that state he don't
hardly know how to swear to anything. But he's sure he didn't sign
it. The bill was brought to him by Lopez, and there was words between
them, and he wouldn't have nothing to do with it. How is he to go to
law? And it don't make much difference neither, for they can't take
much more from him than they have taken." Emily as she heard all
this sat shivering, trying to repress her groans. "Only," continued
Mrs. Parker, "they hadn't sold the furniture, and I was thinking
they might let me stay in the house, and try to do with letting
lodgings,--and now they're seizing everything along of this bill.
Sexty is like a madman, swearing this and swearing that;--but what
can he do, Mrs. Lopez? It's as like his hand as two peas; but he was
clever at everything was--was--you know who I mean, ma'am.