ontinued Arabella. "My boy and
Jude's!"

Sue's eyes darted a spark. "You needn't throw that in my face!" she
cried.

"Very well--though I half-feel as if I should like to have him with
me! ... But Lord, I don't want to take him from 'ee--ever I should
sin to speak so profane--though I should think you must have enough
of your own! He's in very good hands, that I know; and I am not the
woman to find fault with what the Lord has ordained. I've reached a
more resigned frame of mind."

"Indeed! I wish I had been able to do so."

"You should try," replied the widow, from the serene heights of a
soul conscious not only of spiritual but of social superiority.
"I make no boast of my awakening, but I'm not what I was. After
Cartlett's death I was passing the chapel in the street next ours,
and went into it for shelter from a shower of rain. I felt a need
of some sort of support under my loss, and, as 'twas righter than
gin, I took to going there regular, and found it a great comfort.
But I've left London now, you know, and at present I am living at
Alfredston, with my friend Anny, to be near my own old country. I'm
not come here to the fair to-day. There's to be the foundation-stone
of a new chapel laid this afternoon by a popular London preacher, and
I drove over with Anny. Now I must go back to meet her."

Then Arabella wished Sue good-bye, and went on.

VIII

In the afternoon Sue and the other people bustling about Kennetbridge
fair could hear singing inside the placarded hoarding farther down
the street. Those who peeped through the opening saw a crowd of
persons in broadcloth, with hymn-books in their hands, standing round
the excavations for the new chapel-walls. Arabella Cartlett and her
weeds stood among them. She had a clear, powerful voice, which could
be distinctly heard with the rest, rising and falling to the tune,
her inflated bosom being also seen doing likewise.

It was two hours later on the same day that Anny and Mrs. Cartlett,
having had tea at the Temperance Hotel, started on their return
journey across the high and open country which stretches between
Kennetbridge and Alfredston. Arabella was in a thoughtful mood; but
her thoughts were not of the new chapel, as Anny at first surmised.

"No--it is something else," at last said Arabella sullenly. "I
came here to-day never thinking of anybody but poor Cartlett, or of
anything but spreading the Gospel by means of this new tabernac