"That
was one reason why she was so glad to marry me."

"Well, then," he said, "would you mind me having Olivia?"

"Don't jest about such a thing," I replied; "it is too serious a
question with me."

"You are really in love!" he answered. "I will not jest at it. But I am
ready to do any thing to help you, old boy."

So it proved, for he and Dr. Senior did their best during the next few
weeks to find a suitable opening for me. I made their house my home, and
was treated as a most welcome guest in it. Still the time was
irksome--more irksome than I ever could have imagined. They were busy
while I was unoccupied.

Occasionally I went out to obey some urgent summons, when either of them
was absent; but that was a rare circumstance. The hours hung heavily
upon me; and the close, sultry air of London, so different from the
fresh sea-breezes of my native place, made me feel languid and
irritable.

My mother's letters did not tend to raise my spirits. The tone of them
was uniformly sad. She told me the flood of sympathy for Julia had risen
very high indeed: from which I concluded that the public indignation
against myself must have risen to the same tide-mark, though my poor
mother said nothing about it. Julia had resumed her old occupations, but
her spirit was quite broken. Johanna Carey had offered to go abroad with
her, but she had declined it, because it would too painfully remind her
of our projected trip to Switzerland.

A friend of Julia's, said my mother in another letter, had come to stay
with her, and to try to rouse her.

It was evident she did not like this Kate Daltrey, herself, for the
dislike crept out unawares through all the gentleness of her phrases.
"She says she is the same age as Julia," she wrote, "but she is probably
some years older; for, as she does not belong to Guernsey, we have no
opportunity of knowing." I laughed when I read that. "Your father
admires her very much," she added.

No, my mother felt no affection for her new guest.

There was not a word about Olivia. Sark itself was never mentioned, and
it might have sunk into the sea. My eye ran over every letter first,
with the hope of catching that name, but I could not find it. This
persistent silence on my mother's part was very trying.

I had been away from Guernsey two months, and Jack was making
arrangements for a long absence from London as soon as the season was
over, leaving me in charge, when I received the following letter