"I'll be glad to come, and thankye, too, my lady, if father will let me." "Who is her father, Mrs. Sims?" "Joe Jacks the carpenter, ma'am." "I don't suppose he is likely to make much objection to her getting such a place as mine, is he?" "That is what I can't pretend to say, ma'am," replied the schoolmistress very gravely.... "I don't think Betty over steady myself, but of course it is no business of mine, and it will be far best that you should see Joe Jacks yourself, ma'am, and hear what he says about it." "To be sure; ... and where can I see him?" "He'll be certain to be here to-morrow morning, ma'am, for he'll come to be paid for the bench he made for me; and if so be you would take the trouble to call again just about one, when Betty will be going home with him for the half holiday they always haves of a Saturday, why then, ma'am, you'd be quite sure to see him, and hear what he'd got to say." "Very well, then, that will do, and we shall certainly walk over again to-morrow, if the weather is anything like fine.--Good morning to you, Mrs. Sims!... Mind what I have said to you, Betty; this is a fine chance for you, and so you must tell your father. Come along, Agnes." It so chanced that within half an hour of their departure Miss Compton also paid a visit to the school. Mrs. Sims was one of the persons whom she had saved from severe, and probably lasting penury, by one of those judicious loans, which, never being made without good and sufficient knowledge of the party accommodated, were sure to be repaid, and enabled her to perform a most essential benefit without any pecuniary loss whatever. There were no excursions which gave the old lady so much pleasure as those which enabled her to contemplate the good effects of this rational species of benevolence, and farmer Wright never failed to offer her a place in his chaise-cart whenever his business took him near any of the numerous cottages where this agreeable spectacle might greet her. On the present occasion he set her down at the door of the school-house, while he called upon a miller at no great distance; and Mrs. Sims, who was somewhat disturbed in mind by the visit and schemes of Mrs. Barnaby, no sooner saw her enter than she led her through the throng of young stitchers and spellers to the tidy little parlour behind. "Well, now, Miss Compton, you are kindly welcome," she said; "and I wish with all my heart you had been here but a bit ago, for who should we have here, ma'am, but your own niece, Mrs. Barnaby." Miss Compton knit her brows with an involuntary frown. "And that sweet, pretty creature, Miss Willoughby, comed with her.... She is a beauty, to be sure, if ever there was one." "What did they come for, Mrs. Sims?" inquired Miss Compton with sudden animation.