But, you ask, did not the Countess Czerlaski pay any attention to her friends all this time?  To be sure she did.  She was indefatigable in visiting her ‘sweet Milly’, and sitting with her for hours together.  It may seem remarkable to you that she neither thought of taking away any of the children, nor of providing for any of Milly’s probable wants; but ladies of rank and of luxurious habits, you know, cannot be expected to surmise the details of poverty.  She put a great deal of eau-de-Cologne on Mrs. Barton’s pocket-handkerchief, rearranged her pillow and footstool, kissed her cheeks, wrapped her in a soft warm shawl from her own shoulders, and amused her with stories of the life she had seen abroad.  When Mr. Barton joined them she talked of Tractarianism, of her determination not to re-enter the vortex of fashionable life, and of her anxiety to see him in a sphere large enough for his talents.  Milly thought her sprightliness and affectionate warmth quite charming, and was very fond of her; while the Rev. Amos had a vague consciousness that he had risen into aristocratic life, and only associated with his middle-class parishioners in a pastoral and parenthetic manner.

However, as the days brightened, Milly’s cheeks and lips brightened too; and in a few weeks she was almost as active as ever, though watchful eyes might have seen that activity was not easy to her.  Mrs. Hackit’s eyes were of that kind, and one day, when Mr. and Mrs. Barton had been dining with her for the first time since Milly’s illness, she observed to her husband—­’That poor thing’s dreadful weak an’ delicate; she won’t stan’ havin’ many more children.

Mr. Barton, meanwhile, had been indefatigable in his vocation.  He had preached two extemporary sermons every Sunday at the workhouse, where a room had been fitted up for divine service, pending the alterations in the church; and had walked the same evening to a cottage at one or other extremity of his parish to deliver another sermon, still more extemporary, in an atmosphere impregnated with spring-flowers and perspiration.  After all these labours you will easily conceive that he was considerably exhausted by half-past nine o’clock in the evening, and that a supper at a friendly parishioner’s, with a glass, or even two glasses, of brandy-and-water after it, was a welcome reinforcement.  Mr. Barton was not at all an ascetic; he thought the benefits of fasting were entirely confined to the Old Testament dispensation; he was fond of relaxing himself with a little gossip; indeed, Miss Bond, and other ladies of enthusiastic views, sometimes regretted that Mr. Barton did not more uninterruptedly exhibit a superiority to the things of the flesh.  Thin ladies, who take little exercise, and whose livers are not strong enough to bear stimulants, are so extremely critical about one’s personal habits!  And, after all, the Rev. Amos never came near the borders of a vice.  His very faults were middling—­he was not very ungrammatical.  It was not