"It never rains but it pours," said Miss Stivergill. "Surprises don't come singly, it appears.--Have you read _that_?" She handed her friend the newspaper which recounted the "gallant rescue." Miss Lillycrop's countenance was a study which cannot be described. The same may be said of her bonnet. When she came to the name of Aspel her eyeballs became circular, and her eyebrows apparently attempted to reach the roots of her hair. "Maria dear!" she cried, with a little shriek, "this only reminds me that I have still more news to tell. You remember Sir James Clubley? Well, he is dead, and he has left the whole of his property to George Aspel! It seems that Sir James went one night, secretly, as it were, to some low locality where Aspel was preaching to poor people, and was so affected by what he heard and saw that he came forward at the close, signed the pledge along with a number of rough and dirty men, and then and there became a total abstainer. This, I am told, occurred a considerable time ago, and he has been a helper of the Temperance cause ever since. Sir James had no near relatives. To the few distant ones he possessed he left legacies, and in his will stated that he left the rest of his fortune--which, although not large, is considerable--to George Aspel, in the firm belief that by so doing he was leaving it to further the cause of Christianity and Temperance." "Come, now, don't stop there," observed Miss Stivergill calmly, "go on to tell me that Phil Maylands has also had a fortune left him, or become Postmaster-General and got married, or is going to be." "Well, I can't exactly tell you that," returned Miss Lillycrop, "but I can tell you that he has had a rise in the Post-Office Savings Bank, with an increase of salary, and that May declines to marry Aspel unless he agrees to live with her mother in the cottage at Nottinghill. Of course Aspel has consented--all the more that it is conveniently situated near to a station whence he can easily reach the field of his missionary labours." "Does he intend to continue these now that he is rich?" asked Miss Stivergill. "How can you ask such a question?" replied her friend, with a slightly offended look. "Aspel is not a man to be easily moved from his purpose. He says he will labour in the good cause, and devote health and means to it as long as God permits."