glasses in a hole in his window-shutter; and how the drop became like a pond, and was found to be swarming with loathsome live creatures, swimming about, and trying to swallow each other. After these exhibitions, it is true the comet seemed much less wonderful and terrible than before; but then the drop of water was infinitely more so. The lads studied Mr. Kirby’s cistern—so carefully covered, and so regularly cleaned out; and they learned how the water he drank at dinner was filtered; and then they went and scoured out the few water-tubs there were in the village, and consulted their neighbours as to how the public of Bleaburn could be persuaded not to throw filth and refuse into the stream at the upper part, defiling it for those who lived lower down. One morning at the beginning of December—on such a morning as was now sadly frequent, drizzly, and far too warm for the season—the lads who went up to the brow saw the same sight that had been visible in the same place one evening in the preceding August. There was a chaise, and an anxious post-boy, and a lady talking with one of the cordon. Mr. Kirby had learned what friends Mary Pickard had in England, and which of them lived nearest, and he had taken the liberty of writing to declare the condition of the Good Lady. His letter brought the friend, Mrs. Henderson, who came charged with affectionate messages to Mary from her young daughters, and a fixed determination not to return without the invalid. “To think,” as she said to Mary when she appeared by the side of her mattress, “that you should be in England, suffering in this way, and we not have any idea what you were going through!” Mary smiled, and said she had gone through nothing terrible on her own account. She might have been at Mr. Kirby’s for three weeks past, but that she really preferred being where she was. “Do not ask her now, Madam, where she likes to be,” said Mr. Kirby, who had been brought down the street by the bustle of a stranger’s arrival. “Do not consult her at all, but take her away, and nurse her well.” “Yes,” said the Doctor; “lay her in a good air, and let her sleep, and feed her well; and she will soon come round. She is better—even here.” “Madam,” said Widow Johnson’s feeble but steady voice, “be to her what she has been to us; raise her up to what she was when I first heard her step upon those stairs, and we shall say you deserve to be her friend.” “You will go, will not you?” whispered Mrs. Kirby to Mary. “You will let us manage it all for you?” “Do what you please with me,” was the reply. “You know best how to get me well soonest. Only let me tell Aunty that I will come again, as soon as I am able.” “Better not,” said the prudent Mrs. Kirby. “There is no saying what may be the condition of this place by the spring. And it might keep Mrs. Johnson in a state of expectation not fit for one so feeble. Better not.” “Very well,” said Mary.