Miss Locke was recovering very slowly.  Years of anxiety and hard work had overtaxed her strength sorely.  Mr. Hamilton used to shake his head over her tardy progress, and tell her that she was a very unsatisfactory patient, and that he had expected to cure her long before this.

’If it were not for you and my dear Miss Garston, I should never be lying here now,’ she returned gratefully.  ’I must have died; you know that, doctor; and even now, in spite of all the good things you send me, I am so weary and fit for nothing I feel as though I should never sit up again.’

‘Oh, we shall have you up before long,’ he returned cheerfully.  ’You are only rather slow about it.  You are not troubling about your work or anything else, I hope, because the rent is paid, and there is plenty in the cupboard for Phoebe and Kitty.’

’I know you have paid the rent, and I shall never be grateful enough to you, doctor; for what should I have done, with this long illness making me behindhand with everything?  I am afraid Miss Garston puts her hand in her pocket sometimes.  I hope the Lord will bless you both for your goodness to two helpless women.  Ay, and he will bless you, doctor!’

‘I am sure I hope so,’ he returned, in a good-humoured tone, shaking her hand.  ’There! mind what your nurse says, and keep yourself easy:  you will find Phoebe a different person when you see her next.’

I was afraid Phoebe would find her sister much changed when they met.  Miss Locke had greatly aged since her illness; her hair was much grayer, and her face was sunken, and I doubted whether she would ever be the same woman again.  Mr. Hamilton and I had already discussed the sisters’ future.

‘I am afraid they will be terribly pinched,’ he said once.  ’Miss Locke is suffering now from years of overwork.  She will never be able to work as hard as she has done.  And she has to provide for that child Kitty, as well as for poor Phoebe.’

‘We must think what is to be done,’ I replied.  ’Miss Locke is a very good manager:  she is careful and thrifty.  A little will go a long way with her.’

Mr. Hamilton said no more on the subject just then, but a few days afterwards he told me that he intended to buy the cottage.  He had a good deal of house-property in Heathfield, and a cottage more or less did not matter to him.

’They shall live in it rent-free, and I will take care of the repairs.  There will be no need for Miss Locke to work so hard then.  She is a good woman, and I thoroughly respect her.  Of course I know she is a favourite of yours, Miss Garston, but you must not think that influences me.’

‘As though I should imagine such a thing!’ I returned, in quite an affronted tone.  But Mr. Hamilton only laughed.

‘You are such an insignificant person, you see,’ he went on mischievously.  ’You are of so little use to your generation.  People do not benefit by your example, or defer to your opinion.  There is no St. Ursula in the calendar.’  Now what did he mean by all this rigmarole?  But he only laughed again in a provoking way, and went out.