s comfort in that," she replied.

"As much as there's needed," said he.

The widow curtseyed again. "It's not to trouble you, sir, I called.
Robert--thanks be to Above!--is not hurt serious, though severe."

"Where's he hurt?" the farmer asked rather hurriedly.

"In the head, it is."

"What have you come for?"

"First, his best hat."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the farmer. "Well, if that 'll mend his head
it's at his service, I'm sure."

Sick at his heartlessness, the widow scattered emphasis over her
concluding remarks. "First, his best hat, he wants; and his coat and
clean shirt; and they mend the looks of a man, Mr. Eccles; and it's to
look well is his object: for he's not one to make a moan of himself, and
doctors may starve before he'd go to any of them. And my begging prayer
to you is, that when you see your son, you'll not tell him I let you
know his head or any part of him was hurt. I wish you good morning, Mr.
Eccles."

"Good morning to you, Mrs. Boulby. You're a respectable woman."

"Not to be soaped," she murmured to herself in a heat.

The apparently medicinal articles of attire were obtained from Aunt
Anne, without a word of speech on the part of that pale spinster. The
deferential hostility between the two women acknowledged an intervening
chasm. Aunt Anne produced a bundle, and placed the hat on it, upon which
she had neatly pinned a tract, "The Drunkard's Awakening!" Mrs. Boulby
glanced her eye in wrath across this superscription, thinking to
herself, "Oh, you good people! how you make us long in our hearts for
trouble with you." She controlled the impulse, and mollified her
spirit on her way home by distributing stray leaves of the tract to the
outlying heaps of rubbish, and to one inquisitive pig, who was looking
up from a badly-smelling sty for what the heavens might send him.

She found Robert with his arm doubled over a basin, and Susan sponging
cold water on it.

"No bones broken, mother!" he sang out. "I'm sound; all right again. Six
hours have done it this time. Is it a thaw? You needn't tell me what the
old dad has been saying. I shall be ready to breakfast in half an hour."

"Lord, what a big arm it is!" exclaimed the widow. "And no wonder, or
how would you be a terror to men? You naughty boy, to think of stirring!
Here you'll lie."

"Ah, will I?" said Robert: and he gave a spring, and sat upright in the
bed, rather white with the effort, which seemed to affect his mind, for