"I'm not thinking of that!" said Willy. "She went there on business, as everybody knows! But you remember well enough when she was in the city, and I was with her, when the dreadful cholera times came on! Everybody said that there wasn't a person who worked harder and did more for the poor people who were brought to the hospital than Sarah did. "She worked for them night and day; before they were dead and after they were dead! I did what I could, but it wasn't nothin' to what she did! Both of us had been buyin' things, and makin' them up for ourselves, for cotton and linen goods was so cheap then. If it hadn't been for the troubles which came on, we'd had enough to last us for years! But Sarah Cliff isn't the kind of woman to keep things for herself when they're wanted by others, and when she had given everything that she had to those poor creatures at the hospitals, she took my things without as much as takin' the trouble to ask me, for in times like that she isn't the woman to hesitate when she thinks she's doin' what ought to be done, and at one time, in that hospital, there was eleven corpses in my night-gowns!" "Horrible!" exclaimed Miss Shott, rising to her feet. "It would have killed me to think of such a thing as that!" "Well, if it would have killed you," said Willy, "there was another night-gown left." "If you're going to talk that way," said Miss Shott, "I might as well go. I supposed that when I came here I would at least have been treated civilly!" CHAPTER XVI MR. BURKE MAKES A CALL Mrs. Cliff now began her life as a rich woman. The Thorpedykes were established in the new building; her carriage and horses, with a coachman in plain livery, were seen upon the streets of Plainton; she gave dinners and teas, and subscribed in a modestly open way to appropriate charities; she extended suitable aid to the members of Mrs. Ferguson's family, both living and departed; and the fact that she was willing to help in church work was made very plain by a remark of Miss Shott, who, upon a certain Sunday morning at the conclusion of services, happened to stop in front of Mrs. Cliff, who was going out of the church. "Oh," said Miss Shott, suddenly stepping very much to one side, "I wouldn't have got in your way if I'd remembered that it was you who pays the new choir!" Mr. Burke established himself in the Thorpedyke house, which he immediately repaired from top to bottom; but although he frequently repeated to himself and to his acquaintances that he had now set up housekeeping in just the way that he had always wished for, with plenty of servants to do everything just as he wanted it done, he was not happy nevertheless. He felt the loss of the stirring occupation which had so delighted him, and his active mind continually looked right and left for something to do.