"I think Vera has done a lot for all of 'em. I know she sent the Reverend Nicholas a thousand pounds last winter, when his wife wrote her a doleful letter; and she gave her blouse-making cousin two hundred and fifty pounds last week, to save her from bankruptcy. Consider them, forsooth! Do you suppose they don't ask to be considered? Every man jack of them, down to the remotest connection by marriage. They are as eloquent with the pen as professional begging-letter writers. They blister their papers with tears. And Vera never refuses. She does not know how." "Oh, I know she is generous. A thousand to that worthy man in the Fens was handsome; but that kind of casual help won't provide for the future; and when our poor dear is gone there will be nothing. May that sad day be long, long off; but in the meantime she ought to invest her surplus income, and leave it to those who want it most and would use it best. You may be sure I have no personal feeling; but the best of us are not too well off, and if there should come the general election that we are threatened with, I doubt if Chagford will be able to stand for North Devon. The ballot has made bribery more audacious and more expensive than ever. I am told three half crowns is the least the wretches will take. They will ride a candidate's motor to death, and then go and vote for his opponent." "Let Chagford talk to my wife, if there's a dissolution," said Claude, with a half-smothered yawn that expressed weariness and disgust. "Vera is always kind," sighed Lady Okehampton dolefully; but she refrained from suggesting that, when the dissolution came, Vera might not be there. This was Aunt Mildred's last attack upon Claude Rutherford. He took matters into his own hands after this, and no longer depended upon accounts of his wife's health at second hand. He took all information upon that subject from Dr. Selwyn Tower, who had a great reputation at that period, and whom he was inclined to trust. The physician was more frank with the husband than he had been with the aunt, though even yet he said nothing to extinguish hope. He told Mr. Rutherford that it would have been better for his wife to winter in the South, or by way of experiment to try a short winter in the Engadine, coming down to Ragaz before the snow melted; but as the dear lady seemed strangely bent upon staying in her own house, it would be safer to indulge her fancy. Lungs and heart were only a question of weakness. The mind was of serious consequence; and everything must be done to check the tendency to melancholia. "If we can make her happy, we shall be able to deal with the lung trouble," said the physician. "Open air and good spirits might work a miracle."