The fever had left Rachel. She was now cured, and rapidly got better; but still, she did not see Madame Rose, and was favoured with more of Mrs. Brown's company than she liked. At length she one day positively exacted an explanation from Jane, who reluctantly gave it. "Law bless you, Miss!" she said, '"tain't worth talking about. Mrs. Brown can't abide the little Frenchwoman; and so, one day when she went out, she locked the door, and wouldn't let Mary open it; and when Madame Rose rang and rapped, Mrs. Brown put her head out of the window, and railed at her, until she fairly scared her away from the place." "But what brought Mrs. Brown here?" asked Rachel, who had heard her with much surprise. Jane looked embarrassed, but was spared the trouble of replying by the voice of Mrs. Brown, who imperatively summoned her downstairs. She immediately complied, and left Rachel alone. A mild sun shone in through the open window on the sick girl; she had that day got up, for the first time, and sat in a chair with a book on her knees. But she could not read: she felt too happy, blest in that delightful sense of returning health which long sickness renders so sweet. Her whole soul overflowed with joy, thankfulness, and prayer, and for once the shadow of sad or subduing thoughts fell not on her joy. "Well, my girl, and how are you to-day?" said the rough voice of Mrs. Brown, who entered without the ceremony of knocking. Rachel quietly replied that she felt well--almost quite well. "Of course you do. I knew I'd bring you round," said Mrs. Brown. "La bless you! all their coddling was just killing you. So I told Jane, all along, but she wouldn't believe me. 'La bless you, girl!' I said to her, 'I do it willingly, but ifs only just a wasting of my money,' says I." "Your money, Mrs. Brown?" interrupted Rachel, with a start. "Why, of course, my money. Whose else? Didn't you know of it?" "Indeed, I did not," replied Rachel, confounded. "La! what a muff the girl is!" good-humouredly observed Mrs. Brown. "And where did you think, stupid, that the money you have been nursed with these three months came from? Why, from my pocket, of course; twenty pound three-and-six, besides a quarter's rent, and another running on." Rachel was dismayed at the amount of the debt. When and how should she be able to pay so large a sum? Still, rallying from her first feeling of surprise and dismay, she attempted to express to Mrs. Brown her gratitude for the assistance so generously yielded, and her hope of being able to repay it some day; but Mrs. Brown would not hear her. "Nonsense, Rachel," she said, "I ain't a-done more than I ought to have done for my cousin's step-daughter. And to whom should Jane, when she wanted money, have come, but to me? And as to paying me, bless you! there's no hurry, Rachel. I can afford, thank Heaven, to lend twenty pound, and not miss it."