is prejudiced to a certain extent, and I
don't know—  I'm not clever, you know, like
she is—how far she's right. But I think
plainly enough that Miss A.—  I mean Mrs.
Creswell—intends to have her own way in
everything and as she doesn't like us, and
never did, she'll set much against us, and
goodness knows the result!"

Mr. Benthall could not have been
described as " goodness," nor was he a
particularly far-seeing man, but he thought he
knew the result. As he cantered slowly
home that afternoon he thought the matter
out, and came to the conclusion that if Mrs.
Creswell were the woman she was described,
she would tolerate but for a very little time
the presence of two persons so obnoxious in
the same house with her, and that when that
climax arrived, it was the time for the Rev.
George Benthall to step in and do himself
and everybody else concerned a good turn
by taking Gertrude off her uncle's hands.

There was very little doubt that the
shelter of the Woolgreaves roof and the
luxuries of the "Woolgreaves establishment
would be required by one of its inmates for
but a very short time. Mrs. Ashurst's
strength, which had been gradually
declining, began to fail her altogether, and it
was evident to all that the end was at hand.
Dr. Osborne, who was in constant attendance
— and the little man never showed to
such advantage as under the most trying
professional circumstances—shook his head
sadly, and confessed that it had now become
a question of days. But the old lady was
so tranquil, and apparently so happy, that
he hesitated to summon her daughter, more
especially as the newly-married couple were
so soon expected home. The girl who
attended on the old lady in the capacity of
night-nurse had a different experience from
Dr. Osborne so far as the tranquillity of the
patient was concerned. She knew when she
was awake—and considering that she was a
full-blooded, heavy, bacon-fed lass, she
really deserved much credit for the manner
in which she propped her eyelids up with
her forefingers, and resorted to sniffing
instead of snoring—she knew that Mrs.
Ashurst had very disturbed nights, when she
lay moaning and groaning and plucking at
the bed-clothes, and constantly murmuring
one phrase: " For my sake! Lord help
her! God grant it may turn out right!
She did it, I know, for my sake!"
Gradually she lost consciousness, and in her
wandering state she repeated nothing but
this one phrase, "For my sake!"
Occasionally she would smile placidly and look
round the room as though in admiration of
its comfort and appointments, but then the
sad look would come over her face, and she
would repeat the melancholy sentence in
the saddest of tones. Dr. Osborne, when
he eventually came to hear of this, and to
witness it, confessed he could not
understand it. It was not a case for the College
of Surgeons, nor get-at-able by the
pharmacopÅ“ia; it was what Shakespeare said—
he'd heard his girl read it—about not being
able to minister to a mind diseased, or
something of that sort; and yet, God bless him,
Mrs. Ashurst was about the last woman to
have anything of the kind. However, he
should be deuced glad when little Marian—
ah, mustn't call her little Marian now, beg
pardon, Mrs. Creswell—funny, wasn't it?
couldn't get that into his head! had known
'em all so long, and never thought—nor
anybody else for the matter of that. However,
that's neither here nor there. What's that?
Proverb? Eh, " there's no fool like an——"
No, no, mustn't say that before him, please.
What was he saying? Oh, he should be
glad when Mrs. Creswell came home, and
took her mother under her own charge.

Mr. and Mrs. Creswell came home two
days before they were expected, or rather
before they had originally intended. Marian
had heard of her mother's illness, and
expressed a wish to go to her at once—a
wish which of course decided Mr. Creswell's
course of action. The tenants and villagers,
to whom the news of Mr. Creswell's
intended political experiment had been
imparted during his absence, had intended to
give him a welcome in which they could
express their sentiments on flags and
mottoes and triumphal arches, and they
had already arranged an alliterative
sentence, in which " Creswell and Conservatism!"
each picked out with gigantic
capital letters, were to play conspicuous
parts; but Dr. Osborne, who got wind of
what was threatened, drove off to Brocksopp
in his little pony chaise, and there took
Mr. Teesdale, the agent, into confidence,
and revealed to him the real state—hovering
between life and death—in which
Mrs. Ashurst then lay. On the reception of
this information, Mr. Teesdale took upon
himself to hint that the intended
demonstration had better be postponed for a
more convenient season; and accordingly
Mr. and Mrs. Creswell, arriving by the
train at Brocksopp, and having their
carriage to meet them, drove through the
streets when the working people were all