One long look of doubt, of compassion, of love, into each other's eyes; and then the hand-clasp that so thrilled through each of them was loosed; the fingers fell apart. Karl went off to the house, and Lucy burst into a storm of sobs so violent as to startle the little bird, and stop its song. CHAPTER XVII. Taken from the Evil to come. Dreadful commotion at Mrs. Jinks's. Young ladies coming in, all in excitement; the widow nearly off her head. Their pastor was ill. On a sofa before his parlour fire, he lay extended, the Reverend Guy; his head on a soft pillow, his feet (in embroidered slippers) on an embroidered cushion. The room was quite an epitome of sacred decorations, crosses lay embedded amid ferns; illuminated scrolls adorned the walls. Something was wrong with the reverend gentleman's throat: his hands and brow were feverish. Whether it was merely a relaxed throat, or a common soreness, or a quinsy threatening him could not be decided in the general dismay. Some thought one way, some another; all agreed in one thing--that it must be treated promptly. The dear man was passive as any lamb in their ministering hands, and submitted accordingly. What rendered the case more distressing and its need of recovering treatment all-urgent, was the fact that the morrow would be some great day in the calendar, necessitating high services at St. Jerome's. How were they to be held when the chief priest was disabled? Damon Puff was all very well; but he was not the Reverend Guy Cattacomb. The Widow Jinks, assuming most experience by reason of years, and also in possessing a cousin who was a nurse of renown, as good as any doctor on an emergency, had recommended the application of "plant" leaves. The ladies seized upon it eagerly: anything to allay the beloved patient's sufferings and stop the progress of the disorder. The leaves had been procured without loss of time; Lawyer St. Henry's kitchen garden over the way having had the honour of supplying them; and they were now in process of preparation in the ladies' fair hands. Two were picking, three boiling and bruising, four sewing, all inwardly intending to apply them. The Widow Jinks had her hands full below: gruel, broth, jelly, arrow-root, beef-tea, custard puddings, and other things being alike in the course of preparation over the kitchen fire: the superabundant amount of sick dainties arising from the fact that each lady had ordered that which seemed to her best. What with the care of so many saucepans at once, and the being called off perpetually to answer the knocks at the front door, the widow felt rather wild; and sincerely wished all sore throats at Jericho. For the distressing news had spread; and St. Jerome's fair worshippers were coming up to the house in uninterrupted succession.