She found Mary feverish, restless, and full of projects. She would get up early the next day, and make up for lost time. She remembered all the work she had to do, and which she had unaccountably neglected. Her father's shirts to mend, her own wardrobe to see to; the next room to clean up, for a second lodger had never been found; in short, to hear her, it seemed as if her life had only begun, and that this was the day of its opening. In vain Rachel tried to check her soothingly; Mary talked on and was so animated and so merry, that her father, who came up every five minutes to see how she was, could not believe her to be so very ill as Miss Gray thought, or the Doctor had hinted. Indeed, when at nine Rachel left, and he let her down stairs, he seemed quite relieved. "The child's only growing," he said to Rachel, "only growing; a little rest and a little medicine, and she'll be all right again." But scarcely was Rachel out of the door, when she burst into tears. "My poor little Mary," she thought, "my poor little Mary!" CHAPTER XVIII. It was rather late when Rachel knocked timidly at the door, Mrs. Brown opened to her, and there was a storm on her brow. "Well, ma'am," she began; "well, ma'am!" "Oh! pray do not--do not!" imploringly exclaimed Rachel, clasping her hands. For her excessive patience had of late rendered Mrs. Brown's violent temper wholly ungovernable. Irritated by the very meekness which met her wrath, she had, with the instinct of aggression, found the only vulnerable point of Rachel--her father. This was, indeed, the heel of Achilles. All the shafts of the enemy's railing that fell harmless on the childish old man, rebounded on his daughter with double force: deep and keen they sank in her hearty and every one inflicted its wound. And thus it was that Rachel had learned to look with terror to Mrs. Brown's wrath --that she now shrank from it with fear and trembling, and implored for mercy. But there is no arguing with ill-temper. Mrs. Brown would neither give mercy, nor hear reason. Had she not lent twenty pound three and six to Rachel? Was not Rachel beholden to her for food, shelter, chemist's bill, and physician's fees? and should not, therefore, her will be Rachel's law, and her pleasure be Rachel's pleasure? Poor Rachel, her patience was great, but now she felt as if it must fail; as if she could not, even for the sake of a roof's shelter, endure more from one to whom no tie of love or regard bound her--nothing but the burdening sense of an obligation which she had not sought, and for which she had already paid so dearly. She clasped her thin hands--she looked with her mild brown eyes in the face of her tormentor, and her lips quivered with the intensity of the feelings that moved her to reply, and repel insult and contumely, and with the strength of will that kept her silent.