her short life amongst them, a life short but full of sweetest remembrances to all whom it had touched, had shown their gratitude to the mother in kindness to the child. Nothing had been so painful to her as leaving her old home, not because of any kindness in the home where she had been taught many bitter lessons, but because of the warm close friends who filled her life, and who were to be found in almost every cottage on the hill-side. Had she been going there, happiness would have predominated over pain, but Mr. Sandford (who made a merit of having no foolish preferences) had sold the old home long ago, and had built a house according to his own taste within two miles of a thriving manufacturing town, and poor Mrs. Dorriman had often enough heard of its smoke, of the trees killed by vapours from some sulphur-works, and of the blighted flowers; and, like all people who live alone and in their own thoughts, exaggerated the miserable prospect before her. She was entirely dependent on her brother, and had no option, but, though she was too timid to make a stand against him, she had enough of the woman in her to think it no harm to circumvent him to a certain extent, especially as he need never know it unless ... and then she broke off thinking, and resolutely buried herself once more in her book, taking in as little of it as before. She was roused by the sight of the row of small houses which was the beginning of the town, and by the voice of the boy, who broke the two hours' silence and inquired in a stolid voice, "Where wull I put ye doon?" "At the draper's, Willie; and I will call at the inn when I am ready to go home." She went into the draper's shop and took thought for a moment--even on such an occasion the habit of her mind was against buying any unnecessary thing--and she gazed a little helplessly at the array of cloth and homespun upon one side of the shop, and at the groceries and barrels of flour and herrings upon the other; the prevailing odour being tarred rope, herrings, and candles of the primitive sort made in the district--dips with much cotton and very little tallow. The attentive shopman leaned over the counter (she dealt there)--he was half afraid she had come to make some complaint--and he inquired in those dulcet tones in which a distinct fear might have been read, what she required. Mrs. Dorriman gazed at him a little helplessly and made no answer for a moment or so, and then, in a lower voice than was usual with her, she asked the way to the bank. Good Mr. Forbes immediately reflected she might have had some bad news, and he moved a chair for her sympathetically, but she would not sit down. Throwing himself over the counter he went to the door and explained that the bank was higher up the street and on the right-hand side--indeed, as the town contained very little except the one very long straggling street, it would have been very difficult to have missed it.