The letter from Mrs. Dormer-Smith was not shown to him. Mrs. Dobbs meant to keep the amount she was to pay for May a secret even from her faithful and trusted friend Jo. He might guess what he pleased, but she would not tell him. The means, too, by which she meant to raise the money would not, she knew, meet with his approval. And, since she had resolved to use those means, she thought it best to avoid vain discussion beforehand, and therefore said nothing about them. Accident, however, revealed a part of the secret in this way: Mr. Weatherhead, calling one afternoon at Laurel Villa to see Mrs. Simpson, who had been kept at home by a cold, found other visitors there. Miss Polly and Miss Patty Piper were drinking tea out of Mrs. Simpson's best cups and saucers, and chatting away with their usual cheerfulness and volubility. The Miss Pipers, as they would themselves have expressed it, "moved in a superior sphere" to that of the music-teacher and his wife; but they did not consider that they derogated from their gentility by occasionally drinking tea and having a chat with the Simpsons. They liked to condescend a little, and opportunities for condescension were rather rare. Then, too, they had a certain interest in Sebastian Bach Simpson, inherited from the long-ago days when Sebastian Bach's father played the organ in their father's church, and Miss Polly and Miss Patty wore white frocks and blue sashes at evening parties, and were the objects of a good deal of attention from the Reverend Reuben's curates. Besides the sisters there was present Dr. Hatch, who had come to pay a professional visit to Mrs. Simpson, and who was just going away. It was a peculiarity of Dr. Hatch to be always just going away. He had a very large practice, and was wont to aver that his professional duties scarcely left him time to eat or sleep. Yet Dr. Hatch's horses stood waiting through many a quarter of an hour during which their master was engaged in conversation not of a strictly professional nature. When Mr. Weatherhead entered the best parlour of Laurel Villa, Dr. Hatch had a cup of tea in one hand, and his watch in the other, and greeted the new arrival with a friendly nod, and the assurance that he was "just off." Mrs. Simpson shook hands with Mr. Weatherhead, and the Miss Pipers graciously bowed to him. He, too, was connected in their minds with old times. Miss Polly specially remembered seeing him on her visits to the Birmingham Musical Festivals, when her father would take the opportunity of turning over Weatherhead's stock of books, and making a few purchases. And once the Pipers had lodged during a Festival week in the rooms over Weatherhead's shop. "Glad to see you better, Mrs. Simpson," said Jo, taking a seat after having saluted the company.