veniently to fill up the second side of the sheet.

Before long Jane Stiggins, the member who had migrated from Muddleton to
Dulminster, had been duly reported, wound up, and made over to the
Archdeacon's wife. Then the tired hand paused. What more could she say
to her friend?

"We are leading our usual quiet life here," she wrote, "with the ordinary
round of tennis parties and picnics to enliven us. The children have all
been wonderfully well, and I think you will see a great improvement in
your god-daughter when you next come to stay with us"--"Oh dear!" sighed
Mrs. Milton-Cleave, "how dull and stupid I am to-night! I can't think of
a single thing to say." Then at length I flashed into her mind, and with
a sigh of relief and a little rising flush of excitement she went on much
more rapidly.

"It is such a comfort to be quite at rest about them, and to see them all
looking so well. But I suppose one can never be without some cause of
worry, and just now I am very unhappy about that nice girl Gertrude
Morley whom you admired so much when you were last here. The whole
neighbourhood has been dominated this year by a young Polish merchant
named Sigismund Zaluski, who is very clever and musical and knows well
how to win popularity. He has taken Ivy Cottage for four mouths, and is,
I fear, doing great mischief. The Morleys are his special friends, and I
greatly fear he is making love to Gertrude. Now I know privately, on the
very best authority, that although he has so completely deceived every
one and has managed so cleverly to pose as a respectable man, that Mr.
Zaluski is really a Nihilist, a free-lover, an atheist, and altogether a
most unprincipled man. He is very clever, and speaks English most
fluently, indeed he has lived in London since the spring of 1881--he told
me so himself. I cannot help fancying that he must have been concerned
in the assassination of the late Czar, which you will remember took place
in that year early in March. It is terrible to think of the poor Morleys
entering blindfold on such an undesirable connection; but, at the same
time, I really do not feel that I can say anything about it. Excuse this
hurried note, dear Charlotte, and with love to yourself and kindest
remembrances to the Archdeacon,

"Believe me, very affectionately yours,

"GEORGINA MILTON-CLEAVE.

"P.S. It may perhaps be as well not to mention this affair about
Gertrude Morley and Mr. Zaluski. They are not y