"If you please, miss, here's Missus Wilton," said the tall, gawky girl, just emancipated from the village schools to be Jenny's maid-of-all-work and nurse, and the lady in question entered with her village basket upon her arm. "Ah! my dear child!" she cried, bustling across the room, putting her basket on the table, and then bobbing down to kiss Jenny, who sat up, frowning and stiff. "No, no, don't get up." "I was not going to, Mrs Wilton," said Jenny, coldly; "I can't." "Think of that, now," cried the visitor, drawing a chair forward, and carefully spreading her silks and furs as she sat down; "and I've been so dreadfully unneighbourly in not coming to see you, though I did not know you had been so bad as this. You see, I've had such troubles of my own to attend to that I couldn't think of anything else; but it all came to me to-day that I had neglected you shamefully, and so I said to myself, I'd come over at once, as Mr Wilton and my son were both out, and bring you a bit of chicken, and a bottle of wine, and the very last bunch of grapes before it got too mouldy in the vinery, and here I am." "Yes, Mrs Wilton," said Jenny, stiffly; "but if you please, I am not one of the poor people of the parish." "Why, no, my dear, of course not; but whatever put that in your head?" "The wine, Mrs Wilton." "But it's the best port, my dear--not what I give to the poor." "And the bit of chicken, Mrs Wilton," said Jenny, viciously. "But it isn't a bit, my dear; it's a whole one," said the lady, looking troubled. "A cold one, left over from last night's dinner," said Jenny, half hysterically. "Indeed, no, my dear," cried the visitor, appealingly; "it isn't a cooked one at all, but a nice, young Dorking cockerel from the farm." "And a bunch of mouldy grapes," cried Jenny, passionately, bursting into a fit of sobbing, "just as if I were widow Gee!" "Why, my dear child, I--oh, I see, I see; you're only just getting better, and you're lonely and low, and it makes you feel fractious and cross, and I know. There, there, there, my poor darling! I ought to have come before and seen you, for I always did like to see your pretty, little, merry face, and there, there, there!" she continued, as she knelt by the chair, and in a gentle, motherly way, drew the little, thin invalid to her expansive breast, kissing and fondling and cooing over her, as she rocked her to and fro, using her own scented handkerchief to dry the tears.