as out.  “Ah,” said she, “I think I’ll go and look at lodgings at Guestwick myself, and pack up some of my beds.”  Lily made no answer to this, feeling that it was a part of that punishment which she had expected.  “Dear, dear,” said Mrs Crump to the two girls; “well, to be sure, we should ’a been ’lone without ’ee, and mayhap we might ’a got worse in your place; but why did ’ee go and fasten up all your things in them big boxes, just to unfasten ’em all again?”

“We changed our minds, Mrs Crump,” said Bell, with some severity.

“Yees, I know ye changed your mindses.  Well, it’s all right for loiks o’ ye, no doubt; but if we changes our mindses, we hears of it.”

“So, it seems, do we!” said Lily.  “But never mind, Mrs Crump.  Do you send us our letters up early, and then we won’t quarrel.”

“Oh, letters!  Drat them for letters.  I wish there weren’t no sich things.  There was a man here yesterday with his imperence.  I don’t know where he come from,—­down from Lun’on, I b’leeve:  and this was wrong, and that was wrong, and everything was wrong; and then he said he’d have me discharged the sarvice.”

“Dear me, Mrs Crump; that wouldn’t do at all.”

“Discharged the sarvice!  Tuppence farden a day.  So I told ’un to discharge hisself, and take all the old bundles and things away upon his shoulders.  Letters indeed!  What business have they with post-missusses, if they cannot pay ’em better nor tuppence farden a day?” And in this way, under the shelter of Mrs Crump’s storm of wrath against the inspector who had visited her, Lily and Bell escaped much that would have fallen upon their own heads; but Mrs Boyce still remained.  I may here add, in order that Mrs Crump’s history may be carried on to the farthest possible point, that she was not “discharged the sarvice,” and that she still receives her twopence farthing a day from the Crown.  “That’s a bitter old lady,” said the inspector to the man who was driving him.  “Yes, sir; they all says the same about she.  There ain’t none of ’em get much change out of Mrs Crump.”

Bell and Lily went together also to Mrs Boyce’s.  “If she makes herself very disagreeable, I shall insist upon talking of your marriage,” said Lily.

“I’ve not the slightest objection,” said Bell; “only I don’t know what there can be to say about it.  Marrying the doctor is such a very commonplace sort of thing.”

“Not a bit more commonplace than marrying the parson,” said Lily.

“Oh, yes, it is.  Parsons’ marriages are often very grand affairs.  They come in among county people.  That’s their luck in life.  Doctors never do; nor lawyers.  I don’t think lawyers ever get married in the country.  They’re supposed to do it up in London.  But a country doctor’s wedding is not a thing to be talked about much.”

Mrs Boyce probably agreed in this view of the matter, seeing that she did not choose the coming marriage as her first subject of conversation.  As soon as the two girls were seated she flew away immediately to the house, and began to express her very great surprise,—­her surprise and her joy also,—­at the sudden change which had been made in their plans.  “It is so much nicer, you know,” said she, “that things should be pleasant among relatives.”