n't be afraid: I am not quite so poor as I was
when you came down to mess with Trotter and me, and when you gave me a
dozen pairs of stockings. I know what it is to want money, and what it
is to want friends."

"Many thanks to you, Mrs Trotter," replied I; "but I have sufficient to
take me home, and then I can obtain more."

"Well, I'm glad of it, but it was offered in earnest. Good-bye, God
bless you! Come, Mr Simple, give me a kiss; it won't be the first
time."

I kissed her, for I felt grateful for her kindness; and with a little
smirking and ogling she quitted the room. I could not help thinking,
after she was gone, how little we know the hearts of others. If I had
been asked if Mrs Trotter was a person to have done a generous action,
from what I had seen of her in adversity, I should have decidedly said,
No. Yet in this offer she was disinterested, for she knew the service
well enough to be aware that I had little chance of being a first
lieutenant again, and of being of service to her. And how often does it
also occur, that those who ought, from gratitude or long friendship, to
do all they can to assist you, turn from you in your necessity, and
prove false and treacherous! It is God alone who knows our hearts. I
sent my letter to O'Brien to the admiral's office, sat down to a dinner
which I could not taste, and at seven o'clock got into the mail. I was
very ill; I had a burning fever and a dreadful headache, but I thought
only of my sister.

When I arrived in town I was much worse, but did not wait more than an
hour. I took my place in a coach which did not go to the town near
which we resided; for I had inquired and found that coach was full, and
I did not choose to wait another day. The coach in which I took my
place went within forty miles of the vicarage, and I intended to post
across the country. The next evening I arrived at the point of
separation, and taking out my portmanteau, ordered a chaise, and set off
for what once had been my home. I could hardly hold my head up, I was
so ill, and I lay in a corner of the chaise, in a sort of dream, kept
from sleeping from intense pain in the forehead and temples.

It was about nine o'clock at night, when we were in a dreadful jolting
road, the shocks proceeding from which gave me agonising pain, that the
chaise was stopped by two men, who dragged me out on the grass. One
stood over me, while the other rifled the chaise. The post-boy, who
appea