Occasionally, also, Emily's chit-chat bore fruit; the good man had the scent of a sleuth-hound for any event which bore, however remotely, on his life's object; and though he might now have been secretly amused by his sister's excitement over what to him was a very ordinary circumstance, a single remark in connection with it arrested his coffee-cup on its way to his lips. "To be sure I had forgotten that," he murmured. "Forgotten that Leonore made a wealthy marriage, my dear Eustace? Why, it is only three years ago, and we were all full of it." "Then I suppose she----" he paused and mused. "You may be sure she brings back her money with her," nodded Emily cheerfully. "Poor dear child, it's all she has left. So sad to be widowed so young, is it not? I don't think you seem quite to take in how sad it is, Eustace," and she cast a gentle look of reproach. The rector put down his cup and stirred its contents thoughtfully, debating the question within himself. He was so accustomed to sad cases that perhaps--well, perhaps it was as she said: certainly it had not occurred to him to bestow the same pity on a young girl, bereaved indeed, but with a good home to come back to, as he did on Peggy, the ploughman's wife, for instance--that valiant Peggy who, with her ten children, was suddenly reduced from comparative affluence to naked poverty, by the death of the bread-winner of the family. Peggy was getting on in years, and her strength was not what it had been. She had toiled and moiled, and brought up her boys and girls in a way that won her pastor's heart. His smile would be its kindest, his shake of the hand its heartiest when he entered the ploughman's hut; and there were others;--there was the case of Widow Barnaby whose only son had just returned upon her hands, maimed for life, after starting out into the world a fine, strapping youngster, the best lad in the village, only a year before! No, he had not classed the calamity which had befallen pretty little Leonore Boldero as on a plane with these. But perhaps he was wrong, he was growing hard-hearted? Contact with the very poor, and with material misery, was apt to blunt sympathy with sorrows of another nature. "I daresay you are right, Emily," he said candidly; for once convicted, no one was swifter to acknowledge a fault. "I had not looked upon it in that light. Yes, it is certainly very sad about Leonore, poor thing." "People say it is a blessing she does not come back poor and dependent;" thus encouraged, Emily proceeded with gusto, "for we all know the general." "Aye, that we do. So Leonore is rich?" and he obviously pondered on the idea. "My dear brother," Emily laughed, but the laugh was full of affection, "now what is to come first? The Christmas coals, or the Old Folks' Dinner, or----?" "Peggy Farmiloe," said he, succinctly. "Her needs at the present time are paramount. The rest can wait." "So you will call on Leonore?" "I shall make a point of doing so--presently."