"Ay," said Mrs Spurrell, "this ile as my great-aunt gave me, as they said was a white witch, with all her charrums, is right sovereign! Why, I did Jenny Truman's Sally with it when her arm was burnt." "Ay, and you could hear her holler all over the place," said Tirzah; "and she've no use of her arm, poor maid! No, you shan't touch my child no how." Tirzah kept her word, and Mrs Carbonel came every day and doctored the child, and Sophy brought her a doll, which kept her peaceful for hours. The lurcher never barked at them, but seemed to understand their mission. And a wonderful old gipsy grandmother of Tirzah's, with eyes like needles and cheeks like brown leather, came and muttered charms over the child, and believed her cure was owing to them; but she left a most beautiful basket, white and purple, for a present to the lady. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. AN OFFER REJECTED. "Oft in Life's stillest shade reclining In desolation unrepining, Without a hope on earth to find A mirror in an answering mind, Meek souls there are who little deem Their daily strife an angel's theme." _Keble_. In the spring Dora was invited to spend a few weeks with an old family friend in London, where there were daughters who had always been her holiday friends, and with whom she exchanged letters, on big square pages of paper, filled to the very utmost with small delicate handwriting, crossed over so that they looked like chequer-work, and going into all the flaps and round the seal. They did not come above once in a month or six weeks, and contained descriptions of what the damsels had seen, thought, heard, read, or felt; so that they were often really worth the eightpence that had to be paid on their reception. Edmund, who had business in London, took his sister-in-law there, driving old Major to the crossroads, where they met the stage-coach. He went outside, on the box-seat, and she in the dull and close-packed interior, where four persons and one small child had to make the best of their quarters for the six hours that the journey lasted. Tired, headachy, and dusty with March dust, at last Dora emerged, and was very glad to rattle through the London streets in a hackney coach to Mr Elwood's tall house, where there was a warm welcome ready for her.