nurse occupied the other; the young man continued standing.

"I am afraid we have interrupted you," said Lettice, glancing at the
book.

"Oh, pray don't think of it! I am in no hurry to be gone. My time," with
a suppressed sigh, "is all my own. I will finish my lecture by-and-by."

"Ay, do--do--that's a good gentleman. Do you know, ma'am, he's been the
kindest friend, young as he looks, that ever I or my good man met with.
You see we lie here out of the way like--it's a big monstrous parish
this, and our parson has a world of work to do. So we gets rather
overlooked, though, poor man, I believe, he does what he can. I've lived
here these ten years, crippled and bed-ridden as you see, but I got
along pretty well for some time, for I was a bit of a schollard in my
youth; but last winter my eyes took to being bad, and since then I've
not been able to read a line. All gets dizzy like. And I was very dull
and sore beset that I couldn't even see to read the word of God, and my
poor husband, that's the old man as is delving in the garden there, why
he has hardly any eyes left in his head. Enough just to potter about
like, an' see his way, but he couldn't read a line, and it was never so;
and so that blessed young gentleman--law! where is he? Why, I declare
he's gone!"

The young gentleman had, indeed, quietly glided out of the cottage as
soon as his _eloge_ began.

"That young gentleman--I can say what I like now he is gone--has been
_so_ good to us. Many's the half-crown he's given me, and a warm winter
coat of his own to my poor rheumatized old man. Oh! he's a blessed
one--and then he comes and sits and reads to me of an afternoon for an
hour together, because as how one day he called he found me a-cryin,
for why, I could no longer read the Holy Word--and he says 'Cheer up,
Betty, be of good comfort, I'll read it to you daily'--and when I said
'daily, sir--that'll take up too much of your time, I fear'--he sighed a
little, and said he'd nothing particular to do with his time."

"Who is he? Does he belong to this neighborhood?"

"No, miss, he's only been here maybe a half-year or so. He came down on
a visit to Mr. Hickman the doctor out there, Brainwood way, and
presently he went and lodged at a cottage hard by, to be near Hickman,
who's a great name for such complaints as his'n--A-A--I don't know
what's the name--but he's very bad, they say, and not able to do any
thing in the world. Well, he's the best, kindest, Ch