tra work that fell upon her.

Mrs. Hackit, who hardly ever paid a visit to any one but her oldest and
nearest neighbour, Mrs. Patten, now took the unusual step of calling at
the vicarage one morning; and the tears came into her unsentimental eyes
as she saw Milly seated pale and feeble in the parlour, unable to
persevere in sewing the pinafore that lay on the table beside her. Little
Dickey, a boisterous boy of five, with large pink cheeks and sturdy legs,
was having his turn to sit with Mamma, and was squatting quiet as a mouse
at her knee, holding her soft white hand between his little red
black-nailed fists. He was a boy whom Mrs. Hackit, in a severe mood, had
pronounced 'stocky' (a word that etymologically in all probability,
conveys some allusion to an instrument of punishment for the refractory);
but seeing him thus subdued into goodness, she smiled at him with her
kindest smile, and stooping down, suggested a kiss--a favour which Dicky
resolutely declined.

'Now _do_ you take nourishing things enough?' was one of Mrs. Hackit's
first questions, and Milly endeavoured to make it appear that no woman
was ever so much in danger of being over-fed and led into self-indulgent
habits as herself. But Mrs. Hackit gathered one fact from her replies,
namely, that Mr. Brand had ordered port-wine.

While this conversation was going forward, Dickey had been furtively
stroking and kissing the soft white hand; so that at last, when a pause
came, his mother said, smilingly, 'Why are you kissing my hand, Dickey?'

'It id to yovely,' answered Dickey, who, you observe, was decidedly
backward in his pronunciation.

Mrs. Hackit remembered this little scene in after days, and thought with
peculiar tenderness and pity of the 'stocky boy'.

The next day there came a hamper with Mrs. Hackit's respects; and on
being opened it was found to contain half-a-dozen of port-wine and two
couples of fowls. Mrs. Farquhar, too, was very kind; insisted on Mrs.
Barton's rejecting all arrowroot but hers, which was genuine Indian, and
carried away Sophy and Fred to stay with her a fortnight. These and other
good-natured attentions made the trouble of Milly's illness more
bearable; but they could not prevent it from swelling expenses, and Mr.
Barton began to have serious thoughts of representing his case to a
certain charity for the relief of needy curates.

Altogether, as matters stood in Shepperton, the parishioners were more
likely to have a stron