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"
"What are you shivering for?" asked Jan.
"I can't help it. Is--is it anything that--that he can be taken up for?"
"Taken up!" replied Jan, ceasing from his pounding, and fixing his
wide-open eyes on Miss Deborah. "Can I be taken up for doing this?"--and
he brought down the pestle with such force as to threaten the
destruction of the mortar.
"You'll tell me, please," she shivered.
"Well," said Jan, "if you must know it, the doctor had a misfortune."
"A misfortune! He! What misfortune! A misfortune at Chalk Cottage?"
Jan gravely nodded. "And they were in an awful rage with him, and said
he should pay expenses, and all that. And he wouldn't pay expenses--the
chimney-glass alone was twelve pound fifteen; and there was a regular
quarrel, and they turned him out."
"But what was the nature of the misfortune?"
"He set the parlour chimney on fire."
Miss Deborah's lips parted with amazement; she appeared to find some
difficulty in closing them again.
"Set the parlour chimney on fire, Mr. Jan!"
"Very careless of him," continued Jan, with composure.


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