alcon to Grannie, because he made your head ache, and I brought
back Joy, because she never could make anyone's head ache."

"Poor little Falcon! I am afraid I was very cantankerous this morning,
but that dreadful trumpet was rather too much. It is excessively stupid
of me to be so long getting well; but, do you know, I am haunted with
those terrible scenes of last week, and, with the best intentions of
amusing me, Bayley came here and described the condition of Queen's
Square, and the charred bodies they found, one, the corpse of an old
woman, with a bit of red petticoat clinging to it. Ah! it is awful to
think of; and the cure for all this seems so far off."

"It will come at last," Joyce said, with quiet decision.

"Yes, when the whole nation wakes up to see the needs of the poor. We
don't help them, nor try to raise them out of their ignorance of the
commonest laws of humanity. We have been wholly neglectful of their
souls and bodies, and then when they are heated by drink, and let loose
their fury against some grievance, like the entrance of the Anti-Reform
Recorder into Bristol, we hunt them down, trample them under foot, and
never look below the surface to find out what is the bitter root, from
which all this springs."

"_You_ look below the surface, dearest; but don't go over it all now; I
have a piece of news to tell you, which has made me very angry.
Charlotte Benson says she is engaged to marry your uncle. Can anything
be done?"

"Write at once to aunt Letitia to stop it."

"That is the most extraordinary part of the whole affair; she does not
disapprove it."

"She must be mad!" said Gilbert, shortly; "what does my mother say?"

"She is afraid of exciting you about it; but she is very much
disturbed."

"She may well be. He must be looking after your aunt's money."

"Shall I write to Aunt Letitia?"

"Yes; I only wish I were well, and not laid on the shelf like this, and
I would go to Wells to-morrow."

"I thought of writing to Gratian and Ralph, and Harry is still at Fair
Acres. Aunt Letitia thinks a great deal of what Gratian says."

"Better write to Aunt Letitia, and I will tell you what to say. Get my
mother to write also, and surely you have been honest with the girl?"

"Very honest indeed," Joyce said, laughing; "a little too honest!"

The letter was dictated and posted, with one from Mrs. Arundel. Postage
was an object in those days, so that the two letters went under one
cover, careful