ned while she watched
Neelie's retreating figure hastening lightly away from her over the
grass.

"Cry, you little fool!" she said, with her quiet, clear tones, and her
steady smile of contempt. "Cry as you have never cried yet! You have
seen the last of your sweetheart."

XII. A SCANDAL AT THE STATION.

An hour later, the landlady at Miss Gwilt's lodgings was lost in
astonishment, and the clamorous tongues of the children were in a state
of ungovernable revolt. "Unforeseen circumstances" had suddenly obliged
the tenant of the first floor to terminate the occupation of her
apartments, and to go to London that day by the eleven o'clock train.

"Please to have a fly at the door at half-past ten," said Miss Gwilt,
as the amazed landlady followed her upstairs. "And excuse me, you good
creature, if I beg and pray not to be disturbed till the fly comes."
Once inside the room, she locked the door, and then opened her
writing-desk. "Now for my letter to the major!" she said. "How shall I
word it?"

A moment's consideration apparently decided her. Searching through
her collection of pens, she carefully selected the worst that could be
found, and began the letter by writing the date of the day on a soiled
sheet of note-paper, in crooked, clumsy characters, which ended in a
blot made purposely with the feather of the pen. Pausing, sometimes to
think a little, sometimes to make another blot, she completed the letter
in these words:

"HON'D SIR--It is on my conscience to tell you something, which I think
you ought to know. You ought to know of the goings-on of Miss, your
daughter, with young Mister Armadale. I wish you to make sure, and, what
is more, I advise you to be quick about it, if she is going the way
you want her to go, when she takes her morning walk before breakfast.
I scorn to make mischief, where there is true love on both sides. But I
don't think the young man means truly by Miss. What I mean is, I think
Miss only has his fancy. Another person, who shall be nameless betwixt
us, has his true heart. Please to pardon my not putting my name; I am
only a humble person, and it might get me into trouble. This is all at
present, dear sir, from yours,

"A WELL-WISHER."

"There!" said Miss Gwilt, as she folded the letter up. "If I had been
a professed novelist, I could hardly have written more naturally in the
character of a servant than that!" She wrote the necessary address to
Major Milroy; looked admiring