"You are keeping quality hours, Bessy--as our nurse used to say when we were children," was Richard North\'s salutation to his sister as he went in and saw the table laid for breakfast.

Mrs. Rane laughed. She was busy at work, sewing some buttons on a white waistcoat of her husband\'s.

"Oliver was called out at seven this morning, and has not come back yet," she explained.

"And you are waiting breakfast for him! You must be starving."

"I took some coffee when Molly had hers. How is papa, Richard?"

"Anything but well. Very much worried, for one thing."

"Madam and Matilda are back again, I hear?" continued Bessy.

"Three days ago. They have brought Miss Field with them."

"And madam has brought her usual temper, I suppose," added Bessy. "No wonder papa is suffering."

"That of course; it will never be otherwise. But he is troubling himself also very much about the works being stopped. I tell him to leave all such trouble to me, but it is of no use."

"When will the strike end, Richard?"

Richard shook his head. It was an unprofitable theme, and he did not wish to pursue it with Bessy. She had sufficient cares of her own, as he suspected, without adding to them. Three letters lay on the table, close to where Richard was sitting; they were addressed to Dr. Rane. His fingers began turning them about mechanically, quite in abstraction.

"I know the handwriting of two of them," remarked Bessy, possibly fancying he was curious on the point; "not of the third."

"The one is from America," observed Richard, looking at the letters for the first time.

"Yes; it\'s from Dr. Jones. He would like Oliver to join him in America."

"To join him for what?" asked Richard.

Bessy looked at him. She saw no reason why her brother should not be told. Dr. Rane wished it kept secret from the world; but this, she thought, could not apply to her good and trustworthy Richard. She opened her heart and told him all; not what they were going certainly to do, for ways and means were still doubtful, but what they hoped to be able to do. Richard, excessively surprised, listened in silence.

They had made up their minds to leave Dallory. Dr. Rane had taken a dislike to the place; and no wonder, Bessy added in a parenthesis, when he was not getting on at all. He intended to leave it as soon as the practice was disposed of.

"I expect this letter will decide it," concluded Bessy, touching one that bore the London postmark. "It is from a Mr. Lynch, who is wishing to find a practice in the country on account of his health. London smoke does not do for him, he tells Oliver. They have had a good deal of correspondence together, and I know his handwriting quite well. Oliver said he expected his decision to-day or tomorrow. He is to pay two hundred pounds and take the furniture at a valuation."

"And then--do I understand you rightly, Bessy?--you and Rane are going to America?" questioned Richard.

"Oh no," said Bessy with emphasis. "I must have explained badly, Richard. What I said was, that Dr. Jones, who has more practice in America than he knows what to do with, had offered a share of it to Oliver if he would join him. Oliver declined it. He would have liked to go, for he thinks it must be a very good thing; but Dr. Jones wants a large premium: so it\'s out of the question."

"But surely you would not have liked to emigrate, Bessy?"

She glanced into Richard\'s face with her meek, loving eyes, blushing a very little.

"I would go anywhere where he goes," she answered simply. "It would cost me pain to leave you and papa, Richard; especially papa, because he is old, and because he would feel it; but Oliver is my husband."

Richard drummed for a minute or two on the table-cloth. Bessy sewed on her last button.

"Then where does Rane think of pitching his tent, Bessy?"

"Somewhere in London. He says there is no place like it for getting on. Should this letter be to say that Mr. Lynch, takes the practice, we shall be away in less than a month."

"And you have never told us!"

"We decided to say nothing until it was a settled thing, and then only to you, and Mrs. Cumberland, and papa. Oliver does not want the world to know it sooner than need be."

"But do you mean to say that Rane has not told his mother?" responded Richard to this in some surprise.

"Not yet," said Bessy, folding the completed waistcoat. "It will be sure to vex her, and perhaps needlessly; for, suppose, after all, we do not go? That entirely depends upon the disposal of the practice here."

Bessy was picking up the threads in her neat way, and putting the remaining buttons in the little closed box, when Dr. Rane was heard to enter his consulting-room. Away flew Bessy to the kitchen, bringing in the things with her own loving hands--and, for that matter, Molly Green was at her upstairs work--buttered toast, broiled ham, a dainty dish of stewed mushrooms. There was nothing she liked so much as to wait on her husband. Her step was light and soft, her eye bright. Richard, looking on, saw how much she cared for him.

Dr. Rane came in, wiping his brow: the day was hot, and he tired. He had walked from a farm-house a mile beyond the Ham. A strangely weary look sat on his face.

"Don\'t trouble, Bessy; I have had breakfast. Ah, Richard, how d\'ye do?"

"You have had breakfast!" repeated Bessy. "At the farm?"

"Yes; they gave me some."

"Oh dear! won\'t you take a bit of the ham, or some of the mushrooms, Oliver? They are so good. And I waited."

"I am sorry you should wait. No, I can\'t eat two breakfasts. You must eat for me and yourself, Bessy."

Dr. Rane sat down in his own chair at the table, turning it towards Richard, and took up the letters. Selecting the one from Mr. Lynch, he was about to open it when Bessy, who was now beginning her breakfast, spoke.

"Oliver, I have told Richard about it--what we think of doing?"

Dr. Rane\'s glance went out for a moment to his brother-in-law\'s, and met it. He made the best of the situation, smiled gaily, and put down the letter unopened.

"Are you surprised, Richard?" he asked.

"Very much, indeed. Had a stranger told me I was going to leave Dallory myself--and, indeed, that may well come to pass, with this strike in the air--I should as soon have believed it. Shall you be doing well to go, do you think, Rane?"

"Am I doing well here?" was the doctor\'s rejoinder.

"Not very, I fear."

"And, with this strike on, it grows worse. The wives and children fall ill, as usual, and I am called in; but the men have no money to pay me with. I don\'t intend to bring Bessy to dry bread, and I think it would come to that if we stayed here----"

"No, no; not quite to that, Oliver," she interposed. But he took no notice of her.

"Therefore I shall try my fortune elsewhere," continued Dr. Rane. "And if you would return thanks to the quarter whence the blow has originated, you must pay them to your stepmother, Richard. It is she who has driven me away."

Richard was silent. Dr. Rane broke the seal of Mr. Lynch\'s letter, and read it to the end. Then, laying it down, he took up the one from America, and read that. Bessy, looking across, tried to gather some information from his countenance; but Dr. Rane\'s face was one which, in an ordinary way, was not more easily read than a stone.

"Is it favourable news, Oliver?" she asked, as he finished the long letter, and folded it.

"It\'s nothing particular. Jones runs on upon politics. He generally gives me a good dose of them."

"Oh, I meant from Mr. Lynch," replied Bessy. "Is he coming?"

"Mr. Lynch declines."

"Declines, Oliver!"

"Declines the negotiation. And he is not much better than a sneak for giving me all this trouble, and then crying off at the eleventh hour," added Dr. Rane.............