o resist the entrance of the Gospel into Milby Church.'

'You niver spoke a truer word than that, my dear,' said Mrs. Linnet, who
accepted all religious phrases, but was extremely rationalistic in her
interpretation; 'for if iver Old Harry appeared in a human form, it's
that Dempster. It was all through him as we got cheated out o' Pye's
Croft, making out as the title wasn't good. Such lawyer's villany! As if
paying good money wasn't title enough to anything. If your father as is
dead and gone had been worthy to know it! But he'll have a fall some day,
Dempster will. Mark my words.'

'Ah, out of his carriage, you mean,' said Miss Pratt, who, in the
movement occasioned by the clearing of the table, had lost the first part
of Mrs. Linnet's speech. 'It certainly is alarming to see him driving
home from Rotherby, flogging his galloping horse like a madman. My
brother has often said he expected every Thursday evening to be called in
to set some of Dempster's bones; but I suppose he may drop that
expectation now, for we are given to understand from good authority that
he has forbidden his wife to call my brother in again either to herself
or her mother. He swears no Tryanite doctor shall attend his family. I
have reason to believe that Pilgrim was called in to Mrs. Dempster's
mother the other day.'

'Poor Mrs. Raynor! she's glad to do anything for the sake of peace and
quietness,' said Mrs. Pettifer; 'but it's no trifle at her time of life
to part with a doctor who knows her constitution.'

'What trouble that poor woman has to bear in her old age!' said Mary
Linnet, 'to see her daughter leading such a life!--an only daughter, too,
that she doats on.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Miss Pratt. 'We, of course, know more about it than
most people, my brother having attended the family so many years. For my
part, I never thought well of the marriage; and I endeavoured to dissuade
my brother when Mrs. Raynor asked him to give Janet away at the wedding.
'If you will take my advice, Richard,' I said, 'you will have nothing to
do with that marriage.' And he has seen the justice of my opinion since.
Mrs. Raynor herself was against the connection at first; but she always
spoiled Janet, and I fear, too, she was won over by a foolish pride in
having her daughter marry a professional man. I fear it was so. No one
but myself, I think, foresaw the extent of the evil.'

'Well,' said Mrs. Pettifer, 'Janet had nothing to look forward to but
being