rbrother, fumbling the neck of the linen bag,
"you borrowed a hundred pounds for two years, and I charged you
twelve per cent. Six per cent. was enough, and here is the difference
back to your hand."

So saying, she counted twelve pound notes and held them out in her
wrinkled fingers, and the man took them without a word.

"Go on," she cried, sharply.

"Mrs. Corlett, two pounds," read Greeba, and a woman in a widow's cap
and a long cloak came up, wiping her eyes.

"Bella Corlett," said Mrs. Fairbrother, "when I took over
Ballacreggan for my unpaid debt, you begged for the feather bed your
mother died on and the chair that had been your father's. I didn't
give them, though I had enough besides, so here are two pounds to
you, and God forgive me."

The woman took the money and began to cry.

"God reward you," she whimpered. "It's in Heaven you'll be rewarded,
ma'am."

But Mrs. Fairbrother brushed her aside, with an angry word and a
fretful gesture, and called on Greeba for the next name on the list.

"Peter Kermode, twenty-four pounds ten shillings," read Greeba, and a
little old man, with a rough head and a grim, hard, ugly face,
jostled through the people about him.

"Kermode," said Mrs. Fairbrother, "you always tried to cheat me, as
you try to cheat everybody else, and when you sold me those seventy
sheep for six shillings apiece last back end you thought they were
all taking the rot, and you lost thirty pounds by them and brought
yourself to beggary, and serve you right, too. But I sold them safe
and sound for a pound apiece three days after; so here's half of the
difference, and just try to be honest for the rest of your days. And
it won't be a long task, either, for it's plain to see you're not far
from death's door, and it isn't worth while to be a blood-sucker."

At that she paused for breath, and to press her lean hand over the
place of the fire in her chest.

"Ye say true, ma'am, aw, true, true," said the man, in a lamentable
voice. "And in the house of death it must be a great consolation to
do right. Let's sing wi' ye, ma'am. I'm going in the straight way
myself now, and plaze the Lord I'll backslide no more."

And while he counted out the money in his grimy palm, the old
hypocrite was for striking up a Ranter hymn, beginning--

"Oh, this is the God we adore,
Our faithful, unchangeable friend."

But Mrs. Fairbrother cried on him to be silent, and then gathering
strength she went on wit