telegraph. Do both. There is Smith's
bookstall. They will let you have a sheet of paper, and I always carry
stamps." Miss Buff was prompt in action. Six lines were written for the
post and one line for the telegraph, and both were despatched in ten
minutes or less. "Now all is done that can be done to remedy yesterday
and ensure to-morrow: some of them are certain to appear in the morning.
Make your mind easy. Come back to our seat and tell me all about
yourself."

Bessie's cheerfulness revived under the brisk influence of her friend,
and she was ready to give an epitome of her annals, or a forecast of her
hopes, or (which she much preferred) to hear the chronicles of
Beechhurst. Miss Buff was the best authority for the village politics
that she could have fallen in with. She knew everything that went on in
the parish--not quite accurately perhaps, but accurately enough for
purposes of popular information and gossip.

"Well, my dear, Miss Thusy O'Flynn is gone, for one good thing," she
began with a _verve_ that promised thoroughness. "And we are to have a
new organ in the church, for another: it has been long enough talked
about. Old Phipps set his face dead against it until we got the money in
hand; we have got it, but not until we are all at daggers drawn. He told
Lady Latimer that we ought to keep our liberal imaginations in check by
a system of cash payments."

"Our friend has a disagreeable trick of being right," said Bessie
laughing.

"He has his uses, but I cannot bear him. I don't know who is to
blame--whether it is Miss Wort or Lady Latimer--but there is no peace at
Beechhurst now for begging. They have plenty of money, and little enough
to do with it. I call _giving_ the greatest of luxuries, but, bless you!
giving is not all charity. Miss Wort spends a fortune in eleemosynary
physic to half poison poor folks; Lady Latimer indulges herself in a
variety of freaks: her last was a mechanical leg for old Bumpus, who had
been happy on a wooden peg for forty years; we were all asked to
subscribe, and he doesn't thank us for it. As soon as one thing is done
with, up starts another that we are entreated to be interested
in--things we don't care about one bit. Old Phipps protests that it is
vanity and busy-bodyism. I hope I shall never grow so hard-hearted as to
see a poor soul want and not help her, but I hate to be canvassed for
alms on behalf of other people's benevolent objects--don't you?"

"It has never ha