elieve? When
I hinted this to Frank, he turned upon me, and scolded
me, and told me I was measuring the Almighty God with a
foot-rule. But men were punished in the Bible because they
did not believe. Remember the Baptist's father. But I
never dare to go on with Frank on these matters.

I am so full of this affair of poor Mr. Trumbull, and so
anxious about Sam Brattle, that I cannot now write about
anything else. I can only say that no man ever behaved
with greater kindness and propriety than Harry Gilmore,
who has had to act as magistrate. Poor Fanny Brattle has
to go to Heytesbury to-morrow to give her evidence. At
first they said that they must take the father also, but
he is to be spared for the present.

I should tell you that Sam himself declares that he
got to know these men at a place where he was at work,
brickmaking, near Devizes. He had quarrelled with his
father, and had got a job there, with high wages. He used
to be out at night with them, and acknowledges that he
joined one of them, a man named Burrows, in stealing a
brood of pea-fowl which some poulterers wanted to buy. He
says he looked on it as a joke. Then it seems he had some
spite against Trumbull's dog, and that this man, Burrows,
came over here on purpose to take the dog away. This,
according to his story, is all that he knows of the man;
and he says that on that special Saturday night he had not
the least idea that Burrows was at Bullhampton, till he
heard the sound of a certain cart on the road. I tell
you all this, as I am sure you will share our anxiety
respecting this unfortunate young man,--because of his
mother and sister.

Good-bye, dearest; Frank sends ever so many loves;--and
somebody else would send them too, if he thought that I
would be the bearer. Try to think so well of Bullhampton
as to make you wish to live here.--Give my kindest love to
your aunt Sarah.

Your most affectionate friend,

JANET FENWICK.

Mary was obliged to read the letter twice before she completely
understood it. Old Mr. Trumbull murdered! Why she had known the old
man well, had always been in the habit of speaking to him when she
met him either at the one gate or the other of the farmyard,--had
joked with him about Bone'm, and had heard him assert his own perfect
security against robbers not a week before the night on which he was
murdered!