d, covered with many stamps; taking
his own letter to the post, instead of sending the servant with it as
usual. On his return, Mrs. Dethridge had gone out next, and had
come back with something in a jar which she had locked up in her own
sitting-room. Shortly afterward, a working-man had brought a bundle of
laths, and some mortar and plaster of Paris, which had been carefully
placed together in a corner of the scullery. Last, and most remarkable
in the series of domestic events, the girl had received permission to go
home and see her friends in the country, on that very day; having been
previously informed, when she entered Mrs. Dethridge's service, that
she was not to expect to have a holiday granted to her until after
Christmas. Such were the strange things which had happened in the house
since the previous night. What was the interpretation to be placed on
them?

The right interpretation was not easy to discover.

Some of the events pointed apparently toward coming repairs or
alterations in the cottage. But what Geoffrey could have to do with
them (being at the time served with a notice to quit), and why Hester
Dethridge should have shown the violent agitation which had been
described, were mysteries which it was impossible to penetrate.

Anne dismissed the girl with a little present and a few kind words.
Under other circumstances, the incomprehensible proceedings in the house
might have made her seriously uneasy. But her mind was now occupied by
more pressing anxieties. Blanche's second letter (received from Hester
Dethridge on the previous evening) informed her that Sir Patrick
persisted in his resolution, and that he and his niece might be
expected, come what might of it, to present themselves at the cottage on
that day.

Anne opened the letter, and looked at it for the second time. The
passages relating to Sir Patrick were expressed in these terms:

"I don't think, darling, you have any idea of the interest that you have
roused in my uncle. Although he has not to reproach himself, as I have,
with being the miserable cause of the sacrifice that you have made, he
is quite as wretched and quite as anxious about you as I am. We talk of
nobody else. He said last night that he did not believe there was your
equal in the world. Think of that from a man who has such terribly
sharp eyes for the faults of women in general, and such a terribly sharp
tongue in talking of them! I am pledged to secrecy; but I must tell y