o dangerous innovation. "I can't
have poor Prosy put to sleep in a bed like this," said Sally, punching
in the centre of one, and finding a hideous cross-bar. Either Mrs.
Iggulden's nephew must saw it out, and tighten up the sacking from end
to end, or she must get a Christian bed. Poor Prosy! Whereon Mrs.
Iggulden explained that her nephew had by an act of self-sacrifice
surrendered this bed as a luxury for lodgers in the season, having
himself a strong congenital love of bisection. He hadn't slept nigh
so sound two months past, and the crossbar would soothe his slumbers.

So it was finally settled that the Goody and her son should come
to Iggulden's. The question of which set she should occupy being
left open until she should have inspected the stairs. Thereon Mrs.
Iggulden's nephew, whose name was Solomon, contrived a chair to carry
the good lady up them; which she, though faint, declined to avail
herself of when she arrived, perhaps seeing her way to greater
embarrassment for her species by being supported slowly upstairs
with a gasp at each step, and a moan at intervals. However, she was
got up in the end, and thought she could take a little milk with a
teaspoonful of brandy in it.

But as to giving any conception of the difficulties that arose at this
point in determining the choice between above and below, that must be
left to your imagination. A conclusion _was_ arrived at in time--in
a great deal of it--and the Goody was actually settled on the ground
floor at Mrs. Iggulden's, and contriving to battle against collapse
from exhaustion with an implication that she had no personal interest
in reviving, but would do it for the sake of others.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HOW SALLY PUT THE FINISHING TOUCH ON THE DOCTOR, WHO COULDN'T SLEEP.
OF THE GRAND DUKE OF HESSE-JUNKERSTADT. AND OF AN INTERVIEW OVERHEARD

Fenwick was not a witness of this advent, as the Monday on which it
happened had seen his return to town. He had had his preliminary week,
and his desk was crying aloud for him. He departed, renewing a solemn
promise to write every day as the train came into the little station
at Egbert's Road, for St. Sennans and Growborough. It is only a single
line, even now, to St. Sennans from here, but as soon as it was done
it was good-bye to all peace and quiet for St. Sennan.

Rosalind and her daughter came back in the omnibus--not the one for
the hotel, but the one usually spoken of as Padlock's--the one that
liv