“Them sudden changes isn’t ’olesome, and I don’t hold with them, Sarah, my girl. One young man I knew, Maudsley ’is name was, he got the ’orrors, and died a-raving. And all through being cut off his drink too sudden. He broke ’is leg, and ’is mother, she said, ‘Now I’ll break ’im of the drink.’ A very strict Methody woman, were Jane Ann Maudsley. ‘Now I’ll break ’im,’ says she; and there she sits and watches ’im, and the pore feller ’ollering for whisky, just fair ’ollering. ‘Gemme a drop, Mother,’ says he. ‘Not I,’ says she. ‘It’s ’ell fire, William,’ says she. ‘I’m all on fire now, Mother,’ says he. ‘Better burn now than in ’ell, William,’ says Jane Ann; and then the ’orrors took him, and he died. A fine, proper young man as ever stepped, and very sweet on me before I took up with Havergill,” concluded Mrs. Havergill meditatively, whilst Sarah shivered, and wished, as she afterwards confessed to a friend, “that Mrs. Havergill would be more cheerful like—just once in a way, for a change, as it were.” “For she do fair give a girl the ’ump sometimes,” concluded Sarah, after what was for her quite a long speech. Mrs. Havergill was a very buxom and comely person of unimpeachable respectability, but her fund of doleful reminiscence had depressed more than Sarah. David had been known to complain of it between jest and earnest. On one such occasion, at a tea-party to which Mary Chantrey had inveigled him, Miss Dobell ventured a mild protest. “But she is such a treasure. Oh, yes. Your dear mother always found her so.” David winced a little. His mother had not been dead very long then. He regarded Miss Dobell with gravity. “I have always wondered,” he said, “whether it was an early apprenticeship to a ghoul which has imparted such a mortuary turn to Mrs. Havergill’s conversation, or whether it is due to the fact of her having a few drops of Harvey’s Sauce in her veins.” “Harvey’s Sauce?” inquired the bewildered Miss Dobell. David explained in his best professional manner. “I said Harvey’s Sauce because it is an old and cherished belief of mind that the same talented gentleman invented the sauce and composed the well-known ‘Meditations among the Tombs.’ The only point upon which I feel some uncertainty is this: Did he compose the Meditations because the sauce had disagreed with him, or did he invent the sauce as a sort of cheerful antidote to the Meditations? Now which do you suppose, Miss Dobell?” Miss Dobell became very much fluttered. “Oh, I’m afraid—” she began. “I really had no idea that Harvey’s Sauce was an unwholesome condiment. Yes, indeed, I fear that I cannot be of any great assistance, or in fact of any assistance at all. No, oh, no. I fear, Dr. Blake, that you must ask some one else who is better informed than myself. Oh, yes.” Afterwards she confided to Mary Chantrey that she had never heard of the work in question. “Have you, my dear?”