thought that
Dr Levitt ought to know. Dr Levitt thanked her, and said he would try
and find Hope in the course of the morning, to congratulate him; and he
and Mrs Levitt would give themselves the pleasure of calling on the
ladies, very shortly.

"Ritson, how is your wife?" said Sophia, crossing over to speak to a
labourer who was on his way up the street.

"A deal better, Miss. She's coming about right nicely!"

"Ah! that is Mr Hope's doing. He attends her, of course."

"Oh, yes, Miss; he's done her a sight o' good."

"Ah! so he always does: but Ritson, if he should not be able to attend
to her quite so closely as usual, just now, you will excuse it, when you
hear how it is."

"Lord, Miss! the wonder is that he has come at all, so ill as he has
been hisself."

"I don't mean that: you will soon see him very well now. He is going to
be married, Ritson--"

"What, is he? Well--"

"To my cousin, Miss Ibbotson. He will be more at our house, you know,
than anywhere else." And with a wink which was a very good miniature of
her mother's Sophia passed on, leaving Ritson to bless Mr Hope and the
pretty young lady.

She cast a glance into the butcher's shop as she arrived opposite to it;
and her heart leaped up when she saw Mrs James, the lawyer's wife,
watching the weighing of a loin of veal.

"You will excuse my interrupting you, Mrs James," said she, from the
threshold of the shop: "but we are anxious to know whether Mr James
thinks Mrs Enderby really altered of late. We saw him go in last week,
and we heard it was to make an alteration in her will."

"I often wonder how things get abroad," said Mrs James, "My husband
makes such a particular point of never speaking of such affairs; and I
am sure no one ever hears them from me."

"I believe Mrs Enderby told mamma that about the will herself."

"Well, that is as she pleases, of course," said Mrs James, smiling.
"What is the weight with the kidney, Mr Jones?"

"We should like so to know," resumed Sophia, "whether Mr James
considers Mrs Enderby much altered of late."

"I should think you would be better able to judge than he, Miss Grey; I
believe you see her ten times to his once."

"That is the very reason: we see her so often, that a gradual change
would be less likely to strike us."

"Mr Hope will give you satisfaction: he must be a better judge than any
of us."

"Oh, yes; but we cannot expect him to have eyes for any person but one,
at present,