As she passed along the street, the children at play ran in to the houses to say that the Good Lady was coming; and the healthy and the convalescent came out on their door-steps, to bid God bless her; and the sick, who were sensible enough to know what was going on, bade God bless her from their beds. What influence the Good Lady used with the clergyman there is no saying, as the conversation was never reported by either of them; but she soon came back bright and cheerful, saying that Mr. Finch would follow in an hour. She had stepped in at Warrender’s, to beg the father and daughter to come and communicate with the dying woman. They would come: and Sally would go, she was sure, and take Ann Warrender’s place at the wash-tub at home; for there were several sick people in want of fresh linen before night. Poor Sally went sobbing through the streets. She understood the Good Lady’s kindness in sending her away, and on a work of usefulness, because she, alas! could not receive the communion. She was living in sin; and when two or three were gathered together in the name of Christ, she must be cast out. There was little comfort in the service, unless, as the bystanders hoped, the sick woman was too feeble and too much absorbed in her own thoughts to notice some things that dismayed them. Mrs. Billiter was, indeed, surprised at first at the clergyman’s refusal to enter the chamber. He would come no further than the door. Mary saw at a glance that he was in no condition to be reasoned with, and that she must give what aid she could to get the administration over as decently as possible. Happily, he made the service extremely short. The little that there was he read wrong: but Mrs. Billiter (and she alone) was not disturbed by this. Whether it was that the deadening of the ear had begun, or that Mr. Finch spoke indistinctly, and was chewing spices all the time, or that the observance itself was enough for the poor woman, it seemed all right with her. She lay with her eyes still shining, her wasted hands clasped, and a smile on her face, quite easy and content; and when Mr. Finch was gone, she told Mary again that she saw it all now, and was quite ready. She was dead within an hour. As for Warrender, he was more disturbed than any one had seen him since the breaking out of the fever. “Why, there it is before his eyes in the Prayer-book,” said he, “that clergymen ‘shall diligently from time to time (but especially in the time of pestilence, or other infectious sickness) exhort their parishioners to the often receiving of the holy communion:’ and instead of this, he even shuts up the church on Sundays.” “He is not the first who has done that,” said Mary. “It was done in times of plague, as a matter of precaution.” “But, Miss, should not a clergyman go all the more among the people, and not the less, for their having no comfort of worship?”