Miss Brancker, so far as her means allowed, was one of the most charitable of women. She had always a number of pensioners on hand, chiefly elderly spinsters, with whom life was a continual struggle, and widows left forlorn without son or daughter to help them in their declining years. Miss Brancker had a small--a very small--private income, the whole of which of late years, since her brother's salary had more than sufficed for the needs of the little household, she had given away in charity, not by any means always in the form of money, but in a score of other ways in which help, judiciously administered, may be made still more precious to its recipients. As Hermia grew up, she got into the way of accompanying her aunt on her weekly visits among those whom Miss Brancker held it to be a part of her duty to call upon at their own homes. During the last year and a half, however, in consequence of an affection of the knee-joint, which made much walking painful to Aunt Charlotte, Hermia had, in the majority of cases, been compelled to do the visiting alone. Among others whom Hermia made a point of calling upon at least once a week was a' certain poor widow, Mrs. Varrel by name, who was slowly dying of an incurable malady. She had lost her husband, a retired sergeant-major with a small service pension, several years before, and latterly her sole means of livelihood had been a few shillings a week allowed her by a daughter of her former mistress, for at one time Mrs. Varrel had been maid to a lady of quality; a fact she was careful to impress upon all who were brought into contact with her. There had been a time after her husband's death, a period extending over several years, when her only son was in a position to help her, and when, in point of fact, he did help her liberally in accordance with his means. Then something dreadful had come to pass, and Richard Varrel had been able to help his mother no more. It was this same Richard Varrel who, as the reader may or may not remember, had been one of the first on the day of the trial to congratulate John Brancker on his acquittal. He it was who, when John and those who were with him had settled themselves in the fly in which they were to be driven home, had pushed his way through the little crowd of onlookers and laid a detaining hand on the vehicle. "Mr. Brancker, sir," he said, in a voice coarsened with drink, "if such a wretch as I maybe allowed to thank heaven for anything, then I thank it that you are once more a free man. From the first I swore that whoever else might be guilty of Mr. Hazeldine's death, you were innocent. As for him--curse him! he hounded me to my ruin, and he deserved his fate. For him no pity is needed."