Mr. James Swain got the promised odd job in South Molton-street sooner than he had expected it; for, calling at No. 60, according to Mr. Routh's instructions, to ask the lady when his services would be required, he was informed that she had gone away, and he was to carry down the boxes to be conveyed to their destination in the van then standing at the door. Jim performed his duty with a perturbed spirit. "Gone away, is she?" he said over and over again. "Now I should like to know where she's gone, and wot for. I hope he ain't be up to nothin' agin her; but I don't trust him, and I ain't a goin' to lose sight of him for longer than I can help, if I knows it, until she's safe back _some_wheres." "That funeral is largely attended for a small town," said Harriet Routh to the waiter at the inn at Amherst, who was laying the cloth for her dinner. She was sitting by a window on the ground-floor, and idly watching the decorous procession as it passed along the main street, to the huge admiration of gaping boys and gossiping nursemaids. "Yes, ma'am," replied the man, gladly seizing the opportunity of approaching the window and having a peep on his own account. "He was very much respected, was old Mr. Evans; no one in the town more so. He gave the best of measures, and used the best of mater'als; and a charitabler man, nor a constanter at meetin', though uncommon deaf latterly, ain't in Amherst." Harriet looked inquiringly at the speaker. "I beg your pardon, ma'am, you're a stranger, of course, and don't know nothin' about poor old Evans. He were a tailor, ma'am, at Amherst, man and boy, for fifty year and more, and got a deal of custom, which they do say no tailor here won't have for the future, seeing as they can't compete with the Sydenham suits." Harriet made no comment upon the man's little discourse, and he left the room. When she was alone, she smiled a smile not good to see, and said, half aloud: "I remember how they used to talk about Providence and providential interventions on behalf of the good, long ago, when I used to fancy I believed in Providence, and when I certainly did believe in the existence of the good. I wonder what these people would call _this?_ If it is a providential intervention, the theory has two sides." CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE DEFENSIVE.