friends, you may spare yourselves the useless
inquiry! We are the only people who can earn
it—for we are the only people who are always
right.

In the case of my misguided aunt, the form
which pious perseverance was next to take
revealed itself to me plainly enough.

Preparation by clerical friends had failed,
owing to Lady Verinder's own reluctance.
Preparation by books had failed, owing to the
doctor's infidel obstinacy. So be it! What was the
next thing to try? The next thing to try was—
Preparation by Little Notes. In other words, the
books themselves having been sent back, select
extracts from the books, copied by different
hands, and all addressed as letters to my aunt,
were, some to be sent by post, and some to be
distributed about the house on the plan I had
adopted on the previous day. As letters they
would excite no suspicion; as letters they would
be opened—and, once opened, might be read.
Some of them I wrote myself. "Dear aunt, may
I ask your attention to a few lines?" &c. "Dear
aunt, I was reading last night, and I chanced on
the following passage," &c. Other letters were
written for me, by my valued fellow-workers, the
sisterhood at the Mothers' Small-Clothes. "Dear
madam, pardon the interest taken in you by a
true, though humble, friend." "Dear madam,
may a serious person surprise you by saying a
few cheering words?" Using these and other
similar forms of courteous appeal, we reintroduced
all my precious passages under a form
which not even the doctor's watchful materialism
could suspect. Before the shades of evening
had closed around us, I had a dozen awakening
letters for my aunt, instead of a dozen awakening
books. Six I made immediate arrangements
for sending through the post, and six I
kept in my pocket for personal distribution in
the house the next day.

Soon after two o'clock I was again on the
field of pious conflict, addressing more kind
inquiries to Samuel at Lady Verinder's door.

My aunt had had a bad night. She was
again in the room in which I had witnessed her
Will, resting on the sofa, and trying to get a
little sleep. I said I would wait in the library,
on the chance of seeing her. In the fervour of
my zeal to distribute the letters, it never
occurred to me to inquire about Rachel. The
house was quiet, and it was past the hour at
which the musical performance began. I took
it for granted that she and her party of pleasure-seekers
(Mr. Godfrey, alas! included) were all
at the concert, and eagerly devoted myself to
my good work, while time and opportunity
were still at my own disposal.

My aunt's correspondence of the morning
—including the six awakening letters which I
had posted overnight—was lying unopened on
the library table. She had evidently not felt
herself equal to dealing with a large mass of
letters—and she might be daunted by the
number of them, if she entered the library
later in the day. I put one of my second set
of six letters on the chimney-piece by itself;
leaving it to attract her curiosity, by means of
its solitary position, apart from the rest. A
second letter I put purposely on the floor in the
breakfast-room. The first servant who went in
after me would conclude that my aunt had
dropped it, and would be specially careful to
restore it to her. The field thus sown on the
basement story, I ran lightly up-stairs to scatter
my mercies next over the drawing-room floor.

Just as I entered the front room, I heard
a double knock at the street-door—a soft,
fluttering, considerate little knock. Before I could
think of slipping back to the library (in which
I was supposed to be waiting), the active young
footman was in the hall, answering the door.
It mattered little, as I thought. In my aunt's
state of health, visitors in general were not
admitted. To my horror and amazement, the
performer of the soft little knock proved to
be an exception to general rules. Samuel's
voice below me (after apparently answering
some questions which I did not hear) said,
unmistakably, "Up-stairs, if you please, sir."
The next moment I heard footsteps—a man's
footsteps—approaching the drawing-room floor.
Who could this favoured male visitor possibly
be? Almost as soon as I asked myself the
question, the answer occurred to me. Who
could it be but the doctor?

In the case of any other visitor, I should
have allowed myself to be discovered in the
drawing-room. There would have been
nothing out of the common in my having got tired
of the library, and having gone up-stairs for a
change. But my own self-respect stood in the
way of my meeting the person who had insulted
me by sending me back my books. I slipped
into the little third room, which I have
mentioned as communicating with the back
drawing-room, and dropped the curtains which
closed the open doorway. If I only waited
there for a minute or two, the usual result in
such cases would take place. That is to say,
the doctor would be conducted to his patient's
room.

I waited a minute or two, and more than a
minute or two. I heard the visitor walking
restlessly backwards and forwards. I also
heard him talking to himself. I even thought
I recognised the voice. Had I made a
mistake? Was it not the doctor, but somebody
else? Mr. Bruff, for instance? No! an
unerring instinct told me it was not Mr. Bruff.
Whoever he was, he was still talking to himself.
I parted the heavy curtains the least
little morsel in the world, and listened.

The words I heard were, "I'll do it today!"
And the voice that spoke them was Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite's.

              CHAPTER V.

My hand dropped from the curtain. But
don't suppose—oh, don't suppose—that the
dreadful embarrassment of my situation was
the uppermost idea in my mind! So
fervent still was the sisterly interest I felt in Mr.
Godfrey, that I never stopped to ask myself
why he was not at the concert. No! I thought