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Rh "With a cream-jug in my hand, or else sewing buttons on to a shirt collar. But he never forgave me about the mutton-broth. He told me, in so many words, that I was a—storyteller. And, for the matter of that, my dear, so I was."

"He told me that you were an angel."

"Goodness gracious!"

"A ministering angel. And so you have been. I can almost feel it in my heart to be glad that I have been ill, seeing that I have had you for my friend."

"But you might have had that good fortune without the fever."

"No, I should not. In my married life I have made no friends till my illness brought you to me; nor should I ever really have known you but for that. How should I get to know any one?"

"You will now, Mrs. Crawley, will you not? Promise that you will. You will come to us at Framley when you are well? You have promised already, you know."

"You made me do so when I was too weak to refuse."

"And I shall make you keep your promise too. He shall come also, if he likes; but you shall come, whether he likes or no. And I won't hear a word about your old dresses. Old dresses will wear as well at Framley as at Hogglestock."

From all which it will appear that Mrs. Crawley and Lucy Robarts had become very intimate during this period of the nursing, as two women always will, or at least should do, when shut up for weeks together in the same sick-room.

The conversation was still going on between them when the sound of wheels was heard upon the road. It was no highway that passed before the house, and carriages of any sort were not frequent there.

"It is Fanny, I am sure," said Lucy, rising from her chair.

"There are two horses," said Mrs. Crawley, distinguishing the noise with the accurate sense of hearing which is always attached to sickness; "and it is not the noise of the pony carriage."

"It is a regular carriage," said Lucy, speaking from the window, "and stopping here. It is somebody from Framley Court, for I know the servant."

As she spoke a blush came to her forehead. Might it