n's house that Mr.
Dunster lodged), "wanting to know if we could tell her where Mr. Dunster
was, for he never came home last night at all. And you were in the
drawing-room with--who did you say he was?--that Mr. Livingstone, who
might have come at a better time to bid good-bye; and he had never dined
here, had he? so I don't see any reason he had to come calling, and P. P.
C.-ing, and your papa _not_ up. So I said to Mrs. Jackson, 'I'll send
and ask Mr. Wilkins, if you like, but I don't see any use in it, for I
can tell you just as well as anybody, that Mr. Dunster is not in this
house, wherever he may be.' Yet nothing would satisfy her but that some
one must go and waken up your papa, and ask if he could tell where Mr.
Dunster was."

"And did papa?" inquired Ellinor, her dry throat huskily forming the
inquiry that seemed to be expected from her.

"No! to be sure not. How should Mr. Wilkins know? As I said to Mrs.
Jackson, 'Mr. Wilkins is not likely to know where Mr. Dunster spends his
time when he is not in the office, for they do not move in the same rank
of life, my good woman; and Mrs. Jackson apologised, but said that
yesterday they had both been dining at Mr. Hodgson's together, she
believed; and somehow she had got it into her head that Mr. Dunster might
have missed his way in coming along Moor Lane, and might have slipped
into the canal; so she just thought she would step up and ask Mr. Wilkins
if they had left Mr. Hodgson's together, or if your papa had driven home.
I asked her why she had not told me all these particulars before, for I
could have asked your papa myself all about when he last saw Mr. Dunster;
and I went up to ask him a second time, but he did not like it at all,
for he was busy dressing, and I had to shout my questions through the
door, and he could not always hear me at first."

"What did he say?"

"Oh! he had walked part of the way with Mr. Dunster, and then cut across
by the short path through the fields, as far as I could understand him
through the door. He seemed very much annoyed to hear that Mr. Dunster
had not been at home all night; but he said I was to tell Mrs. Jackson
that he would go to the office as soon as he had had his breakfast, which
he ordered to be sent up directly into his own room, and he had no doubt
it would all turn out right, but that she had better go home at once.
And, as I told her, she might find Mr. Dunster there by the time she got
there. There, there