Mrs. Vincent, who had paused with an uncomfortable sensation of being pursued, recovered herself a little during this address. The minister's mother had no heart to linger and talk to any one at that moment, after all the excitement of the evening, with her fatigued frame and occupied mind; but still she was the minister's mother, as ready and prepared as Arthur himself ought to have been, to hear anything that any of the flock might have to say to her, and to give all the benefit of her experience to anybody connected with Salem, who might be in trouble. "I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Vincent; "my daughter is ill--that is why I was making so much haste; but I am sure, if I can be of any use to any member of-- I mean to any of my son's friends"--she concluded rather abruptly. She did not remember much about this woman, who was strangely unlike the other people in Salem. When was that time in which they had met before? The widow's mind had been so swept by the whirlwind of events and emotions, that she remembered only dimly how and where it was she had formerly seen her strange companion. "Your daughter is ill?" said Mrs. Hilyard; "that is how trouble happens to you. You are a good woman; you don't interfere in God's business; and this is how your trouble comes. You can nurse her and be about her bed; and when she wakes up, it is to see you and be grateful to you. But my child," she said, touching the widow's arm suddenly with her hand, and suppressing painfully a shrill tone of anguish in her voice which would break through, "does not know me. She opens her blue eyes--they are not even my eyes--they are Alice's eyes, who has no right to my child--and looks at me as if I were a stranger; and for all this time, since I parted with her, I have not heard--I do not know where she is. Hush, hush, hush!" she went on, speaking to herself, "to think that this is me, and that I should break down so at last. A woman has not soul enough to subdue her nerves for ever. But this is not what I wanted to say to you. I gave Miss Smith your son's address----" Having said this, she paused, and looked anxiously at the widow, who looked at her also in the windy gleams of lamplight with more and more perplexity. "Who is Miss Smith?" asked poor Mrs. Vincent. "Who are--you? Indeed, I am very sorry to seem rude; but my mind has been so much occupied. Arthur, of course, would know if he were here, but Susan's illness has taken up all my thoughts; and--I beg your pardon--she may want me even now," she continued, quickening her steps. Even the courtesy due to one of the flock had a limit; and the minister's mother knew it was necessary not to yield too completely to all the demands that her son's people might make upon her. Was this even one of her son's people? Such persons were unusual in the connection. Mrs. Vincent, all fatigued, excited, and anxious as she was, felt at her wits' end.