ny girl; only I had
given missus my word." Martha was all but crying again; and I had little
comfort to give her, for I knew, from old experience, of the horror with
which both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon "followers;" and in Miss Matey's
present nervous state this dread was not likely to be lessened.

I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her completely by surprise;
for she had not been to see Miss Matilda for two days.

"And now I must go back with you, my dear, for I promised to let her know
how Thomas Holbrook went on; and I'm sorry to say his housekeeper has sent
me word to-day that he hasn't long to live. Poor Thomas! That journey to
Paris was quite too much for him. His housekeeper says he has hardly ever
been round his fields since; but just sits with his hands on his knees in
the counting-house, not reading or any thing, but only saying, what a
wonderful city Paris was! Paris has much to answer for, if it's killed my
cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived."

"Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?" asked I; a new light as to the
cause of her indisposition dawning upon me.

"Dear! to be sure, yes! Has she not told you? I let her know a fortnight
ago, or more, when first I heard of it. How odd, she shouldn't have told
you!"

Not at all, I thought; but I did not say any thing. I felt almost guilty
of having spied too curiously into that tender heart, and I was not going
to speak of its secrets--hidden, Miss Matey believed, from all the world. I
ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda's little drawing-room; and then left
them alone. But I was not surprised when Martha came to my bedroom door,
to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that missus had one of her bad
headaches. She came into the drawing-room at tea-time; but it was
evidently an effort to her; and, as if to make up for some reproachful
feeling against her late sister, Miss Jenkyns, which had been troubling
her all the afternoon, and for which she now felt penitent, she kept
telling me how good and how clever Deborah was in her youth; how she used
to settle what gowns they were to wear at all the parties (faint, ghostly
ideas of dim parties far away in the distance, when Miss Matey and Miss
Pole were young!) and how Deborah and her mother had started the benefit
society for the poor, and taught girls cooking and plain sewing; and how
Deborah had once danced with a lord; and how she used to visit at Sir
Peter Arley's, and try to remodel t