But though he remained immovable on this point, he had been compelled to give up his afternoon service on the Sunday, and to accept Mr. Parry’s offer of aid in the evening service, as well as to curtail his weekday labours; and he had even written to Mr. Prendergast to request that he would appoint another curate to the Paddiford district, on the understanding that the new curate should receive the salary, but that Mr. Tryan should co-operate with him as long as he was able.  The hopefulness which is an almost constant attendant on consumption, had not the effect of deceiving him as to the nature of his malady, or of making him look forward to ultimate recovery.  He believed himself to be consumptive, and he had not yet felt any desire to escape the early death which he had for some time contemplated as probable.  Even diseased hopes will take their direction from the strong habitual bias of the mind, and to Mr. Tryan death had for years seemed nothing else than the laying down of a burden, under which he sometimes felt himself fainting.  He was only sanguine about his powers of work:  he flattered himself that what he was unable to do one week he should be equal to the next, and he would not admit that in desisting from any part of his labour he was renouncing it permanently.  He had lately delighted Mr. Jerome by accepting his long-proffered loan of the ‘little chacenut hoss;’ and he found so much benefit from substituting constant riding exercise for walking, that he began to think he should soon be able to resume some of the work he had dropped.

That was a happy afternoon for Janet, when, after exerting herself busily for a week with her mother and Mrs. Pettifer, she saw Holly Mount looking orderly and comfortable from attic to cellar.  It was an old red-brick house, with two gables in front, and two clipped holly-trees flanking the garden-gate; a simple, homely-looking place, that quiet people might easily get fond of; and now it was scoured and polished and carpeted and furnished so as to look really snug within.  When there was nothing more to be done, Janet delighted herself with contemplating Mr. Tryan’s study, first sitting down in the easy-chair, and then lying for a moment on the sofa, that she might have a keener sense of the repose he would get from those well-stuffed articles of furniture, which she had gone to Rotherby on purpose to choose.

‘Now, mother,’ she said, when she had finished her survey, ’you have done your work as well as any fairy-mother or god-mother that ever turned a pumpkin into a coach and horses.  You stay and have tea cosily with Mrs. Pettifer while I go to Mrs. Linnet’s.  I want to tell Mary and Rebecca the good news, that I’ve got the exciseman to promise that he will take Mrs. Wagstaff’s lodgings when Mr. Tryan leaves.  They’ll be so pleased to hear it, because they thought he would make her poverty an objection to his leaving her.’

‘But, my dear child.’ said Mrs. Raynor, whose face, always calm, was now a happy one, ’have a cup of tea with us first.  You’ll perhaps miss Mrs. Linnet’s tea-time.’