tly lest she should cry out. It hurt her cruelly. "I was not
aware before that the custody of souls extended to that of the temples
they inhabit," she said, when she could command herself sufficiently to
assume a supreme indifference of tone. "You believe in purely household
remedies, I see."

"I believe always in doing what I can with what means I have. One moment
more, please. I am not quite through."

Gerald held out her hand again. "Perhaps you had better try sandstone on
it this time, or a little burning oil."

Halloway did not answer, but hastily tearing his handkerchief into
strips, bound the arm as closely as he could. "There," he said, surveying
the bandages critically, and inwardly well pleased with his success; "at
least that will do till you can see the doctor."

"Are you sure you are quite through now?" asked Gerald, in mock
submission. "You don't think it necessary to put the arm in a splint, or
to fasten weights to it, or to amputate the first joint of the thumb?"

"I am sorry to say that is all I know how to do for you, Miss Vernor."

"Then I will go back to Miss Lydia. By the way, would you recommend soap
also for hysterics?"

"Applied with a close bandage over the mouth? Certainly, it will be both
effectual and immediate."

"Thank you. Good-night."

"Will you not shake hands with me?"

Gerald turned as she was moving off and held out her hand, more as a
queen might have extended it in motion of dismissal than as friend to
friend. Denham took it between both his. "Before you go, I want to thank
you in the name of all Miss Phebe's friends," he said, earnestly. "You
have saved her life to-night, and at the risk of your own."

"The table-cloth was her savior, not I," returned Gerald, lightly, but
with a softened voice. "And anyway, is it not quite thanks enough only to
know that Phebe is safe? Now good-night in earnest."

CHAPTER IX.

JOPPA'S MINISTRATIONS TO THE SICK.

All news, good, bad, and indifferent, flies equally fast in Joppa; and
had there been a town-crier deputed for the purpose, Phebe's accident
could not have sooner become a household tale in even the most distant
districts of the place. After a contradiction of the first rumor,
reporting her burned to a crisp and only recognizable by a ring of her
mother's on her left hand,--which ring by-the-way she never wore,--and
after a contradiction in due course of the second rumor, reporting Gerald
to be lying in the agonies