m was sent
off to Browndown with the letter. In making this concession, I privately
said to myself, "I shall keep a tight hand over Oscar; he is the
manageable person of the two!"

The interval before the return of the groom was not an easy interval to
fill up. I proposed some music. Lucilla was still too full of her new
interest to be able to give her attention to anything else. She suddenly
remembered that her father and her step-mother ought both to be informed
that Mr. Dubourg was a perfectly presentable person at the rectory: she
decided on writing to her father.

On this occasion, she made no difficulty about permitting me to hold the
pen, while she told me what to write. We produced between us rather a
flighty, enthusiastic, high-flown sort of letter. I felt by no means sure
that we should raise a favorable impression of our new neighbor in the
mind of Reverend Finch. That was, however, not my affair. I appeared to
excellent advantage in the matter, as the judicious foreign lady who had
insisted on making inquiries. For the rest, it was a point of honor with
me--writing for a person who was blind--not to change a single word in
the sentences which Lucilla dictated to me. The letter completed, I wrote
the address of the house in Brighton at which Mr. Finch then happened to
be staying; and I was next about to close the envelope in due
course--when Lucilla stopped me.

"Wait a little," she said. "Don't close the letter yet."

I wondered why the envelope was to be left open, and why Lucilla looked a
little confused when she forbade me to close it. Another unexpected
revelation of the influence of their affliction on the natures of the
blind, was waiting to enlighten me on those two points.

After consultation between us, it had been decided, at Lucilla's express
request, that I should inform Mrs. Finch that the mystery at Browndown
was now cleared up. Lucilla openly owned to having no great relish for
the society of her step-mother, or for the duty invariably devolving on
anybody who was long in the company of that fertile lady, of either
finding her handkerchief or holding her baby. A duplicate key of the door
of communication between the two sides of the house was given to me; and
I left the room.

Before performing my errand, I went for a minute into my bedchamber to
put away my hat and parasol. Returning into the corridor, and passing the
door of the sitting-room, I found that it had been left ajar by some