my way of life, you
know. Why waste your sparkling wit, my love, on your own impenetrable
Oldershaw? It only splutters and goes out. Will you try and be serious
this next time? I have news for you from Thorpe Ambrose, which is beyond
a joke, and which must not be trifled with.

"An hour after I got your letter I set the inquiries on foot. Not
knowing what consequences they might lead to, I thought it safest to
begin in the dark. Instead of employing any of the people whom I have
at my own disposal (who know you and know me), I went to the Private
Inquiry Office in Shadyside Place, and put the matter in the inspector's
hands, in the character of a perfect stranger, and without mentioning
you at all. This was not the cheapest way of going to work, I own; but
it was the safest way, which is of much greater consequence.

"The inspector and I understood each other in ten minutes; and the right
person for the purpose--the most harmless looking young man you ever saw
in your life--was produced immediately. He left for Thorpe Ambrose an
hour after I saw him. I arranged to call at the office on the afternoons
of Saturday, Monday, and to-day for news. There was no news till to-day;
and there I found our confidential agent just returned to town, and
waiting to favor me with a full account of his trip to Norfolk.

"First of all, let me quiet your mind about those two questions of
yours; I have got answers to both the one and the other. The Blanchard
women go away to foreign parts on the thirteenth, and young Armadale is
at this moment cruising somewhere at sea in his yacht. There is talk
at Thorpe Ambrose of giving him a public reception, and of calling a
meeting of the local grandees to settle it all. The speechifying and
fuss on these occasions generally wastes plenty of time, and the public
reception is not thought likely to meet the new squire much before the
end of the month.

"If our messenger had done no more for us than this, I think he would
have earned his money. But the harmless young man is a regular Jesuit at
a private inquiry, with this great advantage over all the Popish priests
I have ever seen, that he has not got his slyness written in his face.

"Having to get his information through the female servants in the usual
way, he addressed himself, with admirable discretion, to the ugliest
woman in the house. 'When they are nice-looking, and can pick and
choose,' as he neatly expressed it to me, 'they waste a great