"I did not, my dear. Yet there was little to finish. I did but tarry at Court till the great plague-time, when all was broke up, and I went home to nurse my mother, who took the plague and died of it. After that I continued to dwell with my father. For a while after my mother's death, he was very low and melancholical, saying that God had now met with him and was visiting his old sins upon him. And then, the very next year, came the fire, and we were burned out and left homeless. Then he was worse than ever. 'Twas like the curse pronounced on David, said he, that the sword should never depart from his house: he could never look to know rest nor peace any more; God hated him, and pursued him to the death. No word of mine, though I strove to find many from the Word of God, seemed to bring him any comfort at all. They were not for him, he said, but for them toward whom God had purposes of mercy, and there was none for him. He had sinned against light and knowledge; and God would none of him any more. "One morning, about a week after the fire, as I was coming back from my marketing to the little mean lodging where we had took shelter, and was just going in at the door, I was sorely started to feel a great warm hand on my shoulder, and a loud, cheery voice saith, `Dolly Jennings, whither away so fast thou canst not see an old friend?' I looked up, and there was dear old Farmer Ingham, in his thick boots and country homespun; but I declare to you, child, that in my trouble his face was to me as that of an angel of God. I brake down, and sobbed aloud. `Come, come, now!' saith he, comfortably; `not so bad as that, is it? I've been seeking thee these four days, Dolly, child. I knew I could find thee if I came myself, though the Missis said I never should; and I've asked at one, and asked at another, and looked up streets and down streets, till this morning I saw a young maid, with her back to me, a-going down an alley; and says I, right out loud, "That's Dolly's back, or else I'm a Dutchman!" So I ran after thee, and only just catched thee up. I'm not so lissome as thou; nay, nor so lissome as I was at thy years. However, here I am, and here thou art; so that's all right. And there's a good bed and a warm welcome for everyone of you at Ingle Nook'--that was the name of his farm, my dear--`and I've brought up a cart and the old tit to drag it, and we'll see if we can't make thee laugh and be rosy again.' Dear old man! no nay would he take, nor suffer so much as a word from father about our being any cost and trouble to him. `Stuff and nonsense!' said he; `I've got money saved, and the farm's doing well, and only my two bits of maids to leave it to; and who should I desire to help in this big trouble, if not my own foster-child, and hers?' So father yielded, and we went down to Ingle Nook.