This was kindness--such Rachel felt it to be; but, alas! she also felt that these was on her, from that day, the badge of obligation and servitude. She was still too weak to work; she had, dining her long illness, lost the best part of her customers; until her full recovery, she was, perforce, cast on Mrs. Brown for assistance, and, of all persons, Mrs. Brown was the last not to take advantage of such a state of things. Mrs. Brown came when she liked, said what she liked, and did what she liked in Rachel's house. But, indeed, it was not Rachel's house--it was Mrs. Brown's. Rachel was there on sufferance; the very bed on which she slept was Mrs. Brown's; the very chair on which she sat was Mrs. Brown's. So Mrs. Brown felt, and made every one feel, Rachel included. The effects of her rule were soon apparent. Every article of furniture changed its place; every household nook was carefully examined and improved, and every luckless individual who entertained a lingering kindness for Rachel Gray, was affronted, and effectually banished from the house, from irascible Madame Rose down to peaceful Mr. Jones. Rachel carried patience to a fault; through her whole life, she had been taught to suffer and endure silently, and now, burdened with the sense of her debt and obligation, she knew not how to resist the domestic tyranny of this new tormentor. The easiest course was to submit. To Rachel it seemed that such, in common gratitude, was her duty; and, accordingly, she submitted. But this was a time of probation and trial: as such she ever looked back to it, in after life. To Jane, her patience seemed amazing, and scarcely commendable. "I wonder you can bear with the old creetur, that I do," she said, emphatically. "Mrs. Brown means kindly," said Rachel, "and she has been a kind friend to me, when I had no other friend. I may well hare a little patience." "A little patience!" echoed Jane, indignantly, "a little patience! when she's always at you." But Rachel would hear no more on the subject. If she bore with Mrs. Brown, it was not to murmur at her behind her back. Yet she was not so insensible to what she endured, but that she felt it a positive relief when Mrs. Brown went and paid one of her nieces a visit in the country, and for a few weeks delivered the house of her presence. Internally, Rachel accused herself of ingratitude because she felt glad. "It's very wrong of me, I know," she remorsefully thought, "but I feel as if I could not help it." Her health was now restored. She had found some work to do; with time she knew she should be able to pay Mrs. Brown. Her mind recovered its habitual tone; old thoughts, old feelings, laid by during the hour of trial and sickness, but never forsaken, returned to her now, and time, as it passed on, matured a great thought in her heart.