Wilson in great trouble; she is sad indeed."--"Then you know the family?" said I.--"Know them!" repeated she; "who does not, that lives in the parish, and I may say for miles round?"--"I am sorry to hear she is ill," observed I, anxious for more intelligence.--"Why as for the matter of health," returned she, "thank God, she has no reason to complain; but she is sadly troubled to see the curate so poorly. I suppose, Sir, you know Mr. and Madam Howard, who live at the Abbey."--I bowed my head.--"It will make your heart ach, I can tell you," continued she, "to see the poor gentleman; he is a going, _that's for certain_! He has never held up his head since that old rascal of a father died, and left Madam only a shilling out of all his money. Dame Dobs, who nurses Miss, told me a week _agone_ she did not know which of the dear souls would go first, for Madam Howard was a mere _notomy_ with fretting. Ah! Sir, you may well turn up your eyes to heaven," continued she, with eagerness, "they will find a a God to comfort them there at least; and that is more than their enemies will. They have the staff in their hands here, but the devil gave it them! I would not be the mistress of the hall for this waggon loaded with gold! They say there is no sleeping in one's bed at the hall since the old man died. I do not wonder at it. How should his soul rest after such wickedness? There is Madam Howard and her dear babe left with a shilling! There is a poor son, he is drove from the hall a downright vagabond, if he be alive; but some say he died of hunger and cold in some great forest beyond sea, and was eaten by the blacks; and that his spirit also has been seen in the room where he kept his books, for he was a great scholar. I did not know him, but Dame Dobs did, and she says he was only too good for them."--"What is become of the widow Flint?" asked I.--"Why she, Sir, as a body may say, 'jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire.' She married a second time, with as bad luck as the first. She is a lady, but her husband is in a sad sort of a way, and looks like a ghost. Poor soul! she has had hard trials! But she is not of my mind. I would sooner beg my bread, with my children at my back, than live as she does, like 'a toad under a harrow;' But the money!--Aye, there's the rub!--Master Philip is to have all Miss Flint's wealth, and so all is submitted to; but she may find herself a loser in the end; for Mr. Flamall is as cunning as the devil himself, and only pretends to love Master Flint for his own advantage. They are a precious set! I would sooner wear lindsey-woolsey than Miss Flint's silks and satins! But, dear me, she knows she is hated in the parish; and that we all pray to God to spare to us Mr. Howard, who is a lamb, Sir, and too good for this wicked world; and when Miss Flint comes to her dying bed, what good will all her money do her, who has overlooked all her relations, _if nothing worse_? It is but lately I settled in