'Well, Miss--I mean Rachel, dear--you know--I may tell you now--the vicar--my dear Willie--he and I--we've been in great trouble--oh, such trouble--Heaven _only_ knows--' and she dried her eyes quickly--'money, my dear--' and she smiled with a bewildered shrug--'some debts at Cambridge--no fault of his--you can't imagine what a saving darling he is--but these were a few old things that mounted up with interest, my dear--you understand--and law costs--oh, you can't think--and indeed, dear Miss--well, _Rachel_--I forgot--I sometimes thought we must be quite ruined.' 'Oh, Dolly, dear,' said Rachel, very pale, 'I feared it. I thought you might be troubled about money. I was not sure, but I was afraid; and, to say truth, it was partly to try your friendship with a question on that very point that I came here, and not indeed, Dolly, dear, from impertinent curiosity, but in the hope that maybe you might allow me to be of some use.' 'How wonderfully good you are! How friends are raised up!' and with a smile that shone like an April sun through her tears, she stood on tiptoe, and kissed the tall young lady, who--not smiling, but with a pale and very troubled face--bowed down and returned her kiss. 'You know, dear, before he went, Mark promised to lend dear Willie a large sum of money. Well, he went away in such a hurry, that he never thought of it; and though he constantly wrote to Mr. Larkin--you have no idea, my dear Miss Lake, what a blessed angel that man is--oh! _such_ a friend as has been raised up to us in that holy and wise man, words cannot express; but what was I saying?--oh, yes--Mark, you know--it was very kind, but he has so many things on his mind it quite escaped him--and he keeps, you know, wandering about on the Continent, and never gives his address; so he, can't, you see, be written to; and the delay--but, Rachel, darling, are you ill?' She rang the bell, and opened the window, and got some water. 'My darling, you walked too fast here. You were very near fainting.' 'No, dear--nothing--I am quite well now--go on.' But she did not go on immediately, for Rachel was trembling in a kind of shivering fit, which did not pass away till after poor Dolly, who had no other stimulant at command, made her drink a cup of very hot milk. 'Thank you, darling. You are too good to me, Dolly. Oh! Dolly, you are too good to me.' Rachel's eyes were looking into hers with a careworn, entreating gaze, and her cold hand was pressed on the back of Dolly's. Nearly ten minutes passed before the talk was renewed. 'Well, now, what do you think--that good man, Mr. Larkin, just as things were at the worst, found a way to make everything--oh, blessed mercy!--the hand of Heaven, my dear--quite right again--and we'll be so happy. Like a bird I could sing, and fly almost--a foolish old thing--ha! ha! ha!--such an old goose!' and she wiped her eyes again.