His wife still stood by him, gazing into his face; and as he looked at her and thought of her misery, he could not control his heart with reference to the wrongs which Sowerby had heaped on him. It was Sowerby's falsehood and Sowerby's fraud which had brought upon him and his wife this terrible anguish. "If there be justice on earth, he will suffer for it yet," he said at last, not speaking intentionally to his wife, but unable to repress his feelings.
"Do not wish him evil, Mark; you may be sure he has his own sorrows."
"His own sorrows! No, he is callous to such misery as this. He has become so hardened in dishonesty that all this is mirth to him. If there be punishment in heaven for falsehood—"
"Oh, Mark, do not curse him!"
"How am I to keep myself from cursing when I see what he has brought upon you?"
"'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,'" answered the young wife, not with solemn, preaching accent, as though bent on reproof, but with the softest whisper into his ear. "Leave that to Him, Mark; and for us, let us pray that He may soften the hearts of us all—of him who has caused us to suffer, and of our own."
Mark was not called upon to reply to this, for he was again disturbed by a servant at the door. It was the cook this time herself, who had come with a message from the men of the law. And she had come, be it remembered, not from any necessity that she as cook should do this line of work; for the footman, or Mrs. Robarts' maid, might have come as well as she; but when things are out of course, servants are always out of course also. As a rule, nothing will induce a butler to go into a stable, or persuade a housemaid to put her hand to a frying-pan. But, now that this new excitement had come upon the household—seeing that the bailiffs were in possession, and that the chattels were being entered in a catalogue, every body was willing to do every thing—every thing but his or her own work. The gardener was looking after the dear children; the nurse was doing the rooms before the bailiffs should reach them; the groom had gone into the kitchen to get their lunch ready for them; and the cook was walking about with an inkstand, obeying all the orders of these great potentates. As far as the servants were concerned, it may be a question
