"That's all I wanted to say, ma'am. Mary, you'll alter those buttons. I've tried it on, and my breast swelled so much with honest indignation, I suppose, that the fastenings nearly flew off. Good-bye, Mrs Berens. Oh! pray shake hands, ma'am. We are not going to be bad friends because I spoke out honestly and plainly." "Oh, no! Mr Salis," faltered the lady, who had hard work to keep back her tears. "I only want the donor to know how I feel about an anonymous gift, which stings a poor man who has any pride in him." "But clergymen should not have any pride," said Mary, coming to Mrs Berens' help. "Quite right, my dear, but they have, and a great deal too sometimes." He nodded shortly to both in turn, and stalked out of the room. Mrs Berens had risen. So had the tears, in spite of a very gallant fight. She made one more effort to keep them back, but her emotion was too strong; and, woman-like, seeking sympathy of woman, she sank upon her knees by Mary's side, sobbing as if her heart would break. "Good-bye, Mary, dear," she said at last. "I'm a weak, simple woman; but I can feel, and very deeply too." This, after a long weeping communion, during which Mary Salis understood the gentle-hearted widow better than she had ever grasped her character before. There was a very tender embrace, and then, with her veil drawn down tightly, Mrs Berens left. "Why not?" said Mary to herself as she lay back thinking. "She is very good and amiable, and she loves him very much. And if I die--poor Hartley will seem to be alone.--Why not?" Then her mind reverted to her visitor's words, and a cloud of trouble sat upon her brow. "What can it mean?" she mused. "And I so helpless here!" she sighed at last; "compelled to hear everything from others, unable to do anything but lie here and think." Volume 3, Chapter III. MOREDOCK WRITES A NOTE. "He's took to it--he's took to it!" muttered Moredock, as he scratched one side of his nose with the waxy end of his pipe. "Ah, it's wonderful what a many doctors do take to it, and gallop theirselves off with it. Begins with a drop to keep 'em up sometimes, I s'pose, and then takes a little more and a little more." The old man sat smoking and musing over a visit he had just had from North. "I don't like it," he said to himself. "He mayn't be quite right some day when I call him in, and then it may be serious for me; I don't like it at all. "It's no wonder when a man's got all sorts o' things as he can mix up into cordles, if he feels a bit down. That was prime stuff as he give me in the morslem. Hah! that was stuff. Then that other as went down into your fingers and toes, as it did right to the very nails. Why, I shouldn't ha' been surprised if he'd brought Squire Luke back to life with it.