CHAPTER IV.


The clergyman of the parish was their first visiter. He assisted
them to look into the future. It was, he who conveyed to Sarah Bond
Alfred's determination that she should be held scatheless. The good
man delivered this information with the manner of a person who feels
he comes with good news, and expects it will be so received; but
Sarah Bond could only regard Alfred as the calumniator of her father's
memory, the despoiler of her rights. The wild expression of joy in
Mabel's face, as she threw herself on her aunt's bosom, gave her to
understand that she ought to be thankful for what saved her from a
prison.

Words struggled for utterance. She who had borne so much and so
bravely, was overcome. Again and again she tried to speak, but for
some hours she fell from one fainting fit into another. She had
borne up against all disasters, until the power of endurance was
overwhelmed; and now, she was attacked by an illness so violent, that
it threatened dissolution. At this very time, when she needed so much
sympathy, a stern and severe man, in whom there was no pity, a man who
had received large sums of money from Miss Bond as a tradesman, and
whose account had stood over from a particular request of his own,
believing that all was gone, and that he should lose, took advantage
of her illness to levy an execution upon the goods, and to demand a
sale.