WRECKED IN PORT.
A SERIAL STORY BY THE AUTHOR OF "BLACK SHEEP."
                                BOOK II.
             CHAPTER XI. WEDNESDAY'S POST.

LORD HETHERINGTON was a powerful man,
who had great influence in most things, but
he could not get his letters delivered at
Westhope before eleven o'clock. Not that
he had not tried. He had, as he expressed
it, "put on all kinds of screws," but he
could not manage it, and if he had had to
wait for the regular delivery by the walking
postman it would have been much
later. A groom, however, always attended
at the nearest post-town on the arrival of
the London mail, and rode over with the
Westhope letter-bag, which was unlocked
by the butler, and its contents distributed.
There was never much curiosity or anxiety
about letters exhibited at Westhope, at least
amongst the members of the family. Of
course young visitors had occasional faint
flutterings of interest about a certain
portion of their correspondence, but they
were too true to the teachings of their
order to allow any vulgar signs of
excitement to be visible; while the letters
received by Lord and Lady Hetherington
were too uniformly dull to arouse the
smallest spark of emotion in the breast of
any one, no matter how excitably inclined.
Lady Caroline Mansergh's correspondence
was of a different kind. A clever woman
herself, she was in the habit of writing
to, and receiving letters from, clever
people, but they simply contained gossip
and small-talk, which might be read at
any time, and which, while pleasant and
amusing when taken in due course, did not
invite any special eagerness for its acquisition.
In a general way, Lady Caroline was
quite content to have her letters brought to
her in whatever room she might happen to
be, but on this Wednesday morning she
was seated at the window as the post-bag-
bearing groom came riding up the avenue,
and a few minutes afterwards she stepped
out into the hall, where the butler had the
letters out on the table before him, and ran
her eye over them.

There it was! that plain, square letter,
addressed to him in the firm, plain hand,
and bearing the Brocksopp postmark!
There it was, his life-verdict, for good or
ill. Nothing to be judged of it by its
appearance—firm, square, and practical; no
ridiculous tremors occasioned by hope or
fear could have had anything to do with
such a sensible-looking document. What
was in it? She would have given anything
to know! Not that she seemed to be in
the least anxious about it. She had asked
where he was, and had been told that he
was at work in the library. He was so
confident of what Miss Ashurst's answer
would be, that he awaited its arrival in the
most perfect calmness. Would he be
undeceived? Lady Caroline thought not just
yet. If the young woman were, as Lady
Caroline suspected, playing a double game,
she would probably find some excuse for not
at once linking her lot with Walter Joyce's
—her mother's ill-health seemed expressly
suited for the purpose—and would suggest
that he should go out first to Berlin, and
see how he liked his new employment,
returning later in the year, when, if all things
seemed convenient, they could be married.
She was evidently a clever girl, and these
were probably the tactics she would pursue.
Lady Caroline wondered whether she was
right in her conjecture, and there was the
letter, a glance at which would solve her
doubts, lying before her! What a ridiculous