"Yes, my dear, very sad. I hardly knew how to bear it at first, and I do not know but I should have sunk under the blow, only that many of our neighbors were ill, and needed my help. Would you believe it, my dears? In that very house next door, the mother was taken down, and her own sons and daughters would not go near her, but left her wholly to the care of a wretch, who drank the wine given for her patient, and then ran away and left her. I went in to see her, and by good hap, was in time to save her from sinking at the crisis of the fever."
"'My good Mrs. Thorpe, it is very kind of you to look after Mama!' said one of the daughters, in her fine lady lisp and drawl; 'but I suppose it is natural to you to like to take care of the sick.'"
"'Madam!' says I. 'I hope it will never be natural to me to desert those who need my help, whether they be strangers, or my own flesh and blood,' says I."
"Oh! I gave them a bit of my mind, I promise you; they were greatly offended and would not come into my shop for a long time; but I let them alone and they got over it."
"Do they live there now?" I asked, much interested.
"Oh, no! They are all gone. One daughter married, and died of the smallpox. The other wedded a fine London gentleman, who soon gambled away all her property, and left her in great poverty and distress, poor thing. She lives in a little cottage over in Gateshead, on what she can make from the rent of this house; which is not much, for it is in bad repair, yet a fine old mansion too, and I will show you over it some day. See! Here are some monthly roses—a bud for each of you."
"Have you not a bud for me also?" asked a cheery voice, from over the stone wall next the church-yard.
We all turned round, and there stood the tall gentleman we had seen before. He was leaning on the wall, and lifted his hat politely.
"Ah! Mr. Cheriton, I did not know your Reverence was in town!" answered Mrs. Thorpe, curtsying low. "I fear there are no more rose-buds, but here is a clove pink if you will have it."
"And when did you come home from foreign parts?" asked Mr. Cheriton, accepting the pink with a bow, and putting it in his button-hole.