Miss Jackson forgot old grievances, and came to stay some months with Milly's children, bringing such material aid as she could spare from her small income.

These were substantial helps, which relieved Amos from the pressure of his money difficulties; and the friendly attentions, the kind pressure of the hand, the cordial looks he met with everywhere in his parish, made him feel that the fatal frost which had settled on his pastoral duties, during the Countess's residence at the Vicarage, was completely thawed, and that the hearts of his parishioners were once more open to him.

No one breathed the Countess's name now; for Milly's memory hallowed her husband, as of old the place was hallowed on which an angel from God had alighted.
When the spring came, Mrs.Hackit begged that she might have Dickey to stay with her, and great was the enlargement of Dickey's experience from that visit.

Every morning he was allowed--being well wrapt up as to his chest by Mrs.Hackit's own hands, but very bare and red as to his legs--to run loose in the cow and poultry yard, to persecute the turkey-cock by satirical imitations of his gobble-gobble, and to put difficult questions to the groom as to the reasons why horses had four legs, and other transcendental matters.

Then Mr.Hackit would take Dickey up on horseback when he rode round his farm, and Mrs.Hackit had a large plumcake in cut, ready to meet incidental attacks of hunger.