Useless is it, too, to pretend that the repeated insinuations have had no effect upon me. As a rule backbiters succeed only in making me see their own unreason, while mentally I take sides with their victims; but in this case fancies of my own were corroborated by the slanders of the neighbours. I have believed, and think it likely, that Bettesworth is ready to deceive me to his own advantage, just as I have long known that he has not really been worth half his wages. He is in desperate plight, dependent on my caprice, and he cannot afford to be over scrupulous on a point of honour. As for old Nanny and the others, I suppose their sense of justice is outraged by Bettesworth's good fortune in having my protection. They are jealous; they resent the imposition which they suppose is being put upon me, and imagine me a blind fool who ought to be enlightened. To-day I fell in with old Mrs. Hall, whose husband is still at the infirmary. She had nothing hopeful to tell me about that old man's condition. He had been more contented, however, since his master had written to him, though he did talk, bedridden as he is, of digging a hole somewhere under the infirmary wall, so that he might escape to the cab that would bring him back home. But Mrs. Hall didn't think--if she said what she really thought--that he would ever come home again. At his great age (why, he is eighty to-morrow!) how could she hope that he would recover? Poor little dumpy old woman, with the plump face, and dainty chin, and round eyes--her lips trembled, talking of her husband and of her own difficulties. "For while he lays up there," she said, "I got nothin' to live on," except a little help from the Vicar. Her daughter, married and away in Devonshire, will pay the quarter's rent, but.... "And Mr. Bettesworth's out, it seems," the old woman continued. "It seems to me he's an ungrateful old man. For 'tis all nice and comfortable up there. It do seem ungrateful." Such was Mrs. Hall's unasked for, unexpected comment, on Bettesworth's behaviour. Poor old woman, to me too it seemed unjust that she should be so unaided, and he, perhaps, so over-aided. He is no old woman, though; allowance must be made for that. He could not away with the sort of comfort so praised by Mrs. Hall. Is, then, the last word about Bettesworth to be that he is dirty, dishonest, degraded? He may be all three (he certainly is the first) and yet have a claim to be helped now and remembered with honour.