But now we come to a strange and singular thing that happened to Jelly. Jelly in her tart way was sufficiently good-hearted. There was sickness in Ketler's house: the wife had her three days' old infant: the little girl, Cissy, grew worse and weaker: and Jelly chose to sacrifice an afternoon to nursing them. Much as she disapproved of the man's joining the Trades' Union and upholding the strike, often as she had assured him that both starving and the workhouse, whichever he might prefer, were too good for him, now that misfortune lay upon the house, Jelly came-to a little. Susan Ketler was her cousin; and, after all, she was not to blame for her husband's wrong doings. Accordingly, in the afternoon of the last day of Mrs. Rane's illness, Jelly went forth to Ketler's, armed with some beef-tea, and a few scraps for the half-famished children, the whole enclosed in a reticule. "I shall take the latch-key," she said, in starting, to the cook, who was commonly called Dinah, "so you can go to bed. If Susan Ketler's very ill I shall stop late. Mind you put a box of matches on the slab in the hall." Susan Ketler was not very ill, Jelly found; but the child, Cissy, was. So ill, that Jelly hardly knew whether to leave her at all, or not. The mother could not attend to her; Ketler had gone tramping off beyond Whitborough after Union work, and had not returned. Only that she thought Mrs. Cumberland would not be pleased if she came to hear that Jelly, the confidential servant in charge, had stayed out for a night, leaving the house with only the cook in it, she had certainly remained. At past twelve poor Ketler arrived home, dead beat, sick, faint, having walked several miles without food. Jelly blew him up a little: she considered that the man who could refuse work when his children were starving, because he belonged to the Trades' Union, deserved nothing but blowing-up: bade him look to Cissy, told him ungraciously that there was a loaf in the pan, and departed. Ketler, ready to drop though he was, civilly offered to see her home; but all the thanks he received in return, was a recommendation to attend to his own concerns and not to meddle with hers. It was a fine, still night, rather too warm for the illness that had fallen upon Dallory; and Jelly walked on at a swift pace, her reticule, empty now, on her arm. Some women might have felt timid at the midnight walk: Jelly was too strong-minded to feel anything of the sort. She certainly found it a little lonely on entering the Ham, as if the road under the overshadowing trees, beginning now to lose some of their leaves, had something weird about it. But this part was soon passed; and Jelly came to the houses, and within sight of home. Not a soul met she: it was as dreary, as far as human companionship went, as it could be. A black cat sprang suddenly from the hedge, and tore across the road almost touching Jelly's feet; and it made her start.