er for the change. Must confess to being a little
startled by the account of your adventure on Lord Mayor's Day, with the
wild scheme for cutting adrift from the hospital and taking London by
storm. But it was just like my little witch, my wandering gipsy, and I
knew it was all nonsense; so when Aunt Anna began to scold I took my pipe
and went upstairs. Sorry to hear that John Storm has gone over to Popery,
for that is what it comes to, though he is not under the Romish
obedience. I am the more concerned because I failed to make his peace
with his father. The old man seems to blame me for everything, and has
even taken to passing me on the road. Give my best respects to Mrs. Jupe,
when you see her again, with my thanks for taking care of you. And now
that you are alone in that great and wicked Babylon, take good care of
yourself, my dear one. To know that my runaway is well and happy and
prosperous is all I have left to reconcile me to her absence. Yes, the
harvest is over and threshed and housed, and we have fires in the parlour
nearly every day, which makes Anna severe sometimes, coals being so dear
just now, and the turf no longer allowed to us."

It was ten days overdue. That night, in her little bedroom, with its low
ceiling and sloping floor, Glory wrote her answer:

"But it isn't nonsense, my dear grandfather, and I really have left the
hospital. I don't know if it was the holiday and the liberty or what, but
I felt like that young hawk at Glenfaba--do you remember it?--the one
that was partly snared and came dragging the trap on to the lawn by a
string caught round its leg. I had to cut it away, I had to, I had to!
But you mustn't feel one single moment's uneasiness about me. An
able-bodied woman like Glory Quayle doesn't starve in a place like
London. Besides, I am provided for already, so you see my bow abides in
strength. The first morning after my arrival Mrs. Jupe told me that if I
cared to take to myself the style and title of teacheress to her little
Slyboots I had only to say the word and I should be as welcome as the
flowers in May. It isn't exactly first fiddling, you know, and it doesn't
bring an ambassador's salary, but it may serve for the present, and give
me time to look about. You mustn't pay too much attention to my
lamentations about being compelled by Nature to wear a petticoat. Things
being so arranged in this world I'll make them do. But it does make one's
head swim and one's wings droop