dear--you understand--and law costs--oh, you can't think--and indeed,
dear Miss--well, _Rachel_--I forgot--I sometimes thought we must be quite
ruined.'

'Oh, Dolly, dear,' said Rachel, very pale, 'I feared it. I thought you
might be troubled about money. I was not sure, but I was afraid; and, to
say truth, it was partly to try your friendship with a question on that
very point that I came here, and not indeed, Dolly, dear, from
impertinent curiosity, but in the hope that maybe you might allow me to
be of some use.'

'How wonderfully good you are! How friends are raised up!' and with a
smile that shone like an April sun through her tears, she stood on
tiptoe, and kissed the tall young lady, who--not smiling, but with a pale
and very troubled face--bowed down and returned her kiss.

'You know, dear, before he went, Mark promised to lend dear Willie a
large sum of money. Well, he went away in such a hurry, that he never
thought of it; and though he constantly wrote to Mr. Larkin--you have no
idea, my dear Miss Lake, what a blessed angel that man is--oh! _such_ a
friend as has been raised up to us in that holy and wise man, words
cannot express; but what was I saying?--oh, yes--Mark, you know--it was
very kind, but he has so many things on his mind it quite escaped
him--and he keeps, you know, wandering about on the Continent, and never
gives his address; so he, can't, you see, be written to; and the
delay--but, Rachel, darling, are you ill?'

She rang the bell, and opened the window, and got some water.

'My darling, you walked too fast here. You were very near fainting.'