down on us like a sack of coals. They've shoved forward our dinner-hour
to one o'clock, so we're regularly dished over the sports, especially as
Saturday afternoon has been changed into morning. The house will go to
the dogs now, _mais que est les odds si longtemps que vous etes
heureuses_? Dig sends his love. He and I remember the loved ones at
home, and try to be good. By the way, do you think pater could go
another five bob? I'm awfully hard up, my dear Daisy, and should
greatly like not to get into evil ways and borrow from Dig. Can you
spare me a photograph to stick up on the mantelpiece to remind me of you
always? You needn't send a cabinet one, because they cost too much.
I'd sooner have a _carte-de-visite_ and the rest in stamps, if you don't
mind. I'm doing my best to give Marky a leg-up. I could get him into a
row and a half if I liked, but for your sake I'm keeping it all dark. I
hope you'll come down soon. It will be an awful game if you do, and
I'll promise to keep the fellows from grinning. _Maintenant, il faut
que je close haut. Donnez mon amour a mere et pere, et esperant que
vous etes tout droit, souvenez me votre aimant frere_, Arthur Herapath.
_Dig envoie son amour a tous_."

Daisy might have been still more affected by this brotherly effusion
than she was, had not she received a letter by the same post from Mark
himself, telling her of his later troubles, and containing a somewhat
more explicit narrative of recent events than had been afforded in the
letter of his prospective brother-in-law.

"I am, I confess, almost at a loss," said he. "I do not like to believe
that anyone in the house can have the meanness to involve us all in this
misfortune by his own guilty silence. ... Much depends now on the
spirit which my prefects show. I believe, myself, that if they take a
proper view of the situation, we may weather the storm. But the new
order of things hits them harder than anyone else, for it excludes them
from football, cricket, and the sports; and I fear it is too much to
expect that they will even try to make the best of it! I begin to feel
that a master, after all, if he is to do any good, must be a sort of
head boy himself, and I would be thankful if my seniors let me into
their confidence, and we were not always dealing with one another at
arm's length. All this, I fear, is uninteresting to you; but it means a
good deal to me. The flighty Arthur does not appear to be much