Within a fortnight the money was withdrawn from the savings-banks in which it had been distributed, in order to evade those regulations which prevent more than a certain sum being at any one time invested in any one bank. And after being withdrawn from this channel, it was placed in the hands of the surgeon, for him to lend or employ as he might deem expedient, and upon those securities that would yield a larger return. The doctor used the money thus intrusted to him in payment of claims which pressed upon himself, and in reduction of his own embarrassments. He paid the old woman, or rather carried to her account, an interest of twenty per cent. per annum with the greatest regularity; and his conscience was satisfied by a belief that he was conferring upon her an essential benefit, by enabling her to obtain this liberal usufruct in preference to the scanty dole of interest she had been receiving. He satisfied scruples, or rather prevented her distrusting him, by from time to time showing her bills of exchange, documents, or papers, which he called bills of sale, and slips of paper which he denominated scrip, railway shares, &c. &c., all of which, he explained to her, were bringing interest at a rate more than four times that she had been previously obtaining. Goody thus learned to regard the doctor, who alone possessed her secret and stood in the relation of her confessor, as her best and sincerest friend. She occasionally rewarded him, as she thought, by purchasing little presents for his children, and by an occasional visit to the hosier's or glover's to make some slight purchase for his own benefit or comfort. After two years or thereabouts had rolled away, Goody, whose physical infirmities increased, whose mental knowledge became more and more warped, whose miserly vices had become more intense, also became dissatisfied with the irregular mode in which she obtained the charity upon which she continued to live, while in her imagination she saw her investment increase. One day the doctor called upon her, to explain that the interest upon a railway debenture fell due to-morrow, and 4_l._ 15_s._ had been thus obtained, which he was prepared to either hand over to her or hold for her investment. She told him she would much rather that he kept all of it except a shilling, which she needed for some purpose, and which sum he gave her. He promised to lay out this further amount, as he had laid out all the rest, in a way to increase its store. "There," she then continued to say, "I have been thinking that I feel very lonesome and very uncomfortable here by myself, and I should like to get into the house." "What! the union workhouse?" "Yes, doctor." "I am afraid it cannot be done." "Oh, I am so sorry. I wish it could. Can't you manage that for me, doctor?"