the organist
sneered again at the disproportion, saying it should have been the other
way, for everyone knew it was a house, but none knew it was Bellevue.

And then Dr Ennefer addressed his medicine to "Mr Joliffe, The Hand"--
not even to The Hand of God, but simply The Hand; and Miss Joliffe eyed
the bottles askance as they lay on the table in the dreary hall, and
tore the wrappers off them quickly, holding her breath the while that no
exclamation of impatience might escape her. Thus, the kindly doctor, in
the hurry of his workaday life, vexed, without knowing it, the heart of
the kindly lady, till she was constrained to retire to her study, and
read the precepts about turning the other cheek to the smiters, before
she could quite recover her serenity.

Miss Joliffe sat in her study considering how Martin's accounts were to
be met. Her brother, throughout his disorderly and unbusinesslike life,
had prided himself on orderly and business habits. It was true that
these were only manifested in the neat and methodical arrangement of his
bills, but there he certainly excelled. He never paid a bill; it was
believed it never occurred to him to pay one; but he folded each account
to exactly the same breadth, using the cover of an old glove-box as a
gauge, wrote very neatly on the outside the date, the name of the
creditor, and the amount of the debt, and with an indiarubber band
enrolled it in a company of its fellows. Miss Joliffe found drawers
full of such disheartening packets after his death, for Martin had a
talent for distributing his favours, and of planting small debts far and
wide, which by-and-by grew up into a very upas forest.

Miss Joliffe's difficulties were increased a thousandfold by a letter
which had reached her some days before, and which raised a case of
conscience. It lay open on the little table before her:

"139, New Bond Street.

"Madam,

"We are entrusted with a commission to purchase several pictures of
still-life, and believe that you have a large painting of flowers for
the acquiring of which we should be glad to treat. The picture to
which we refer was formerly in the possession of the late Michael
Joliffe, Esquire, and consists of a basket of flowers on a mahogany
table, with a caterpillar in the left-hand corner. We are so sure of
our client's taste and of the excellence of the painting that we are
prepared to offer for it a sum of fifty pounds, and to dispense