d come thither unasked, with her boy and baggage, and
he could not send her away. His wife had told him that it was his
duty to protect these women till their father came, and he recognised
the truth of what his wife said. There they were, and there they must
remain throughout the winter. It was hard upon him,--especially as
the difficulties and embarrassments as to money were so disagreeable
to him;--but there was no help for it. His duty must be done though
it were ever so painful. Then that horrid Colonel had come. And now
had come this letter, in which he was not only accused of being an
accomplice between his married niece and her lover, but was also
assured that he should be held up to public ignominy and disgrace.
Though he had often declared that Trevelyan was mad, he would not
remember that now. Such a letter as he had received should have been
treated by him as the production of a madman. But he was not sane
enough himself to see the matter in that light. He gnashed his teeth,
and clenched his fist, and was almost beside himself as he read the
letter a second time.

There had been a method in Trevelyan's madness; for though he had
declared to himself that without doubt Bozzle had been right in
saying that as the Colonel had been at the parsonage, therefore, as a
certainty, Mrs. Trevelyan had met the Colonel there, yet he had not
so stated in his letter. He had merely asserted that Colonel Osborne
had been at the house, and had founded his accusation upon that
alleged fact. The alleged fact had been in truth a fact. So far
Bozzle had been right. The Colonel had been at the parsonage; and the
reader knows how far Mr. Outhouse had been to blame for his share
in the matter! He rushed off to his wife with the letter, declaring
at first that Mrs. Trevelyan, Nora, and the child, and the servant,
should be sent out of the house at once. But at last Mrs. Outhouse
succeeded in showing him that he would not be justified in ill-using
them because Trevelyan had ill-used him. "But I will write to him,"
said Mr. Outhouse. "He shall know what I think about it." And he did
write his letter that day, in spite of his wife's entreaties that
he would allow the sun to set upon his wrath. And his letter was as
follows:--

St. Diddulph's, October 8, 186--.

SIR,

I have received your letter of the 4th, which is more
iniquitous, unjust, and ungrateful, than anything I ever
before saw written. I have been surpris