prospect for the future surely? My good Oldershaw,
there never was a prospect yet without an ugly place in it. _My_
prospect has two ugly places in it. The name of one of them is Mrs.
Milroy, and the name of the other is Mr. Midwinter.

"Mrs. Milroy first. Before I had been five minutes in the cottage, on
the day of my arrival, what do you think she did? She sent downstairs
and asked to see me. The message startled me a little, after hearing
from the old lady, in London, that her daughter-in-law was too great a
sufferer to see anybody; but, of course, when I got her message, I had
no choice but to go up stairs to the sick-room. I found her bedridden
with an incurable spinal complaint, and a really horrible object to look
at, but with all her wits about her; and, if I am not greatly mistaken,
as deceitful a woman, with as vile a temper, as you could find anywhere
in all your long experience. Her excessive politeness, and her keeping
her own face in the shade of the bed-curtains while she contrived to
keep mine in the light, put me on my guard the moment I entered the
room. We were more than half an hour together, without my stepping
into any one of the many clever little traps she laid for me. The only
mystery in her behavior, which I failed to see through at the time, was
her perpetually asking me to bring her things (things she evidently did
not want) from different parts of the room.

"Since then events have enlightened me. My first suspicions were raised
by overhearing some of the servants' gossip; and I have been confirmed
in my opinion by the conduct of Mrs. Milroy's nurse.

"On the few occasions when I have happened to be alone with the major,
the nurse has also happened to want something of her master, and has
invariably forgotten to announce her appearance by knocking, at the
door. Do you understand now why Mrs. Milroy sent for me the moment I got
into the house, and what she wanted when she kept me going backward and
forward, first for one thing and then for another? There is hardly an
attractive light in which my face and figure can be seen, in which
that woman's jealous eyes have not studied them already. I am no longer
puzzled to know why the father and daughter started, and looked at each
other, when I was first presented to them; or why the servants still
stare at me with a mischievous expectation in their eyes when I ring the
bell and ask them to do anything. It is useless to disguise the truth,
Mother