‘What doctor?’ said Mrs. Matchwell, turning her large, dismal, wicked gaze full on Mrs. Mack.

‘Doctor Toole, Ma’am.’  She dared not tell a literal lie to that piercing, prominent pair of black eyes.

‘And why did you send for Doctor O’Toole, Ma’am?’

‘I did not send for the doctor,’ answered the fat lady, looking down, for she could not stand that glance that seemed to light up all the caverns of her poor soul, and make her lies stand forth self-confessed.  ’I did not send for him, Ma’am, only for some drops he promised me.  I’ve been very sick—­I—­I—­I’m so miserable.’

And poor Mrs. Mack’s nether lip quivered, and she burst into tears.

‘You’re enough to provoke a saint, Mrs. Macnamara,’ said the woman in black, rather savagely, though coldly enough.  ’Why you’re on the point of fortune, as it seems to me.’  Here poor Mrs. Mack’s inarticulate lamentations waxed more vehement.  ’You don’t believe it—­very well—­but where’s the use of crying over your little difficulties, Ma’am, like a great baby, instead of exerting yourself and thanking your best friend?’

And the two ladies sat down to a murmuring tete-a-tete at the far end of the room; you could have heard little more than an inarticulate cooing, and poor Mrs. Mack’s sobs, and the stern—­

’And is that all?  I’ve had more trouble with you than with fifty reasonable clients—­you can hardly be serious—­I tell you plainly, you must manage matters better, my good Madam; for, frankly, Ma’am, this won’t do.’

With which that part of the conference closed, and Mary Matchwell looked out of the window.  The coach stood at the door, the horses dozing patiently, with their heads together, and the coachman, with a black eye, mellowing into the yellow stage, and a cut across his nose—­both doing well—­was marching across from the public-house over the way, wiping his mouth in the cuff of his coat.

’Put on your riding-hood, if you please, Madam, and come down with me in the coach to introduce me to Mrs. Nutter,’ said Mrs. Matchwell, at the same time tapping with her long bony fingers to the driver.

’There’s no need of that, Madam.  I said what you desired, and I sent a note to her last night, and she expects you just now; and, indeed, I’d rather not go, Madam, if you please.’

‘’Tis past that now—­just do as I tell you, for come you must,’ answered Mrs. Matchwell.

As the old woman of Berkley obeyed, and got up and went quietly away with her visitor, though her dead flesh quivered with fear, so poor Mrs. Mack, though loath enough, submitted in silence.

’Now, you look like a body going to be hanged—­you do; what’s the matter with you, Madam?  I tell you, you mustn’t look that way.  Here, take a sup o’ this;’ and she presented the muzzle of a small bottle like a pistol at her mouth as she spoke—­

‘There’s a glass on the table, if you let me, Ma’am,’ said Mrs. Mack.