ough, who dearly loved a manoeuver,
and who would have given Millard permission to forge her name and seal
his notes of inquiry with the recently discovered Hilbrough
coat-of-arms, if such extreme measures had been necessary. Mrs.
Callender's reply stated that Dr. Gunstone was hopeful, but that
Phillida seemed pretty ill.

The next morning Millard's card with "Kind inquiries" was sent in, and
the reply was returned that Phillida was no worse. Her mother showed her
the card, and Phillida looked at it for half a minute and then wearily
put it away. An hour later Robert appeared at the door with a bunch of
callas, to which Mrs. Hilbrough's card was attached.

"Oh! see, Philly," said Agatha softly, "Mrs. Hilbrough has sent you some
flowers."

Phillida reached her hand and touched them, gazed at them a moment, and
then turned her head away, and began to weep.

"What is the matter, Philly? What are you crying about?" said her
mother, with solicitation.

"The flowers make me want to die."

"Why, how can the flowers trouble you?"

"They are just like what Charley used to send me. They remind me that
there is nothing more for me but to die and have done with the world."

The flowers were put out of her sight; but Phillida's mind had fastened
itself on those other callas whose mute appeal for Charley Millard, at
the crisis of her history, had so deeply moved her, though her perverse
conscience would not let her respond to it.

XXXVI.

MRS. BESWICK.

About the time that Phillida got her flowers Mrs. Beswick sat mending
her husband's threadbare overcoat. His vigorous thumbs, in frequent
fastening and loosening, had worn the cloth quite through in the
neighborhood of the buttons. To repair this, his wife had cut little
bits of the fabric off the overplus of cloth at the seams, and worked
these little pieces through the holes, and then sewed the cloth down
upon them so as to underlay the thumb-worn places. The buttonholes had
also frayed out, and these had to be reworked.

"I declare, my love," she said, "you ought to have a new overcoat. This
one is not decent enough for a man in your position to wear."

"It'll have to do till warm weather," he said; "I couldn't buy another
if I wanted to."

"But you see, love, since Dr. Gunstone called you and sent a carriage
for you, there's a chance for a better sort of practice, if we were only
able to furnish the office a little better, and, above all, to get you a
go