going there again for some time to come. Yes,
I see you look at me, but I am only a hardened medical man. I go
everywhere, and somehow one escapes a great portion of the ills one goes
to cure."

There was no help for it, and after coming as an act of kindness to see
the poor girl who had cried for her so incessantly, Hazel found herself
literally a prisoner, and duly installed in the bedroom as her sick
scholar's nurse.

CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

BROTHER AND SISTERS--REFINED.

There was a good deal of conversation about it at the Vicarage, where it
became known through a visit paid by Rebecca and Beatrice to the school,
and their coming back scandalised at finding it in charge only of the
pupil-teachers, who explained the reason of Hazel's absence, and that
she had sent a message to Mr Chute, asking him if he would raise one of
the shutters, and give an eye occasionally to the girls' school, which
was, however, in so high a state of discipline now that the
pupil-teachers were able to carry it on passably well.

"And of course Mr Chute has done so?" said Miss Lambent.

"No, please 'm; he said he had plenty to do with his own school,"
replied one pupil-teacher.

"And he wouldn't do anything of the sort," said the other.

"What a disgraceful state of affairs, Beatrice!" exclaimed Miss Lambent;
and the sisters hurried away to acquaint their brother with the last
piece of news.

"I suppose, with a person of her class, one can only expect the same
conduct that one would receive from a servant," said Beatrice acidly.

"I do not understand you, Beatrice," said her brother.

"I mean, Henry, that now she has resigned or received her dismissal, we
shall only get the same amount of inattention that one would from a
discharged servant."

"For my part," said the vicar, "I think that Miss Thorne is being hardly
dealt with."

"Absurd, Henry!" said Miss Lambent. "We cannot say a word to you but
you take Miss Thorne's part."

"Why not, when I see her treated with injustice!"

"Injustice, Henry!" cried Beatrice. "Is it injustice to speak against a
young person who behaves like an unjust steward?"

The vicar was silent.

"For my part," said Rebecca, "I think she should have been dismissed at
once; and she would have been, but for the opposition offered by you,
Henry, and Mr Burge."

"For my part," continued the vicar, ignoring the past speeches, "I can
see nothing more touching, more beautiful, and Christian-like