nd mayhap we'll get permission and help to
write our letter to-morrow, though Sunday, as ye say."

On the morrow Braintop's spirits were low, he having perceived that the
'Little Belloni' postscript had been but an Irish chuckle and nudge in
his ribs, by way of sly insinuation or reminder. He looked out on the
sea, and sighed to be under certain white sails visible in the offing.
Mrs. Chump had received by the morning's post another letter from
Arabella, enclosing one for Wilfrid. A dim sense of approaching mastery,
and that she might soon be melted, combined with the continued silence
of Mr. Pole to make her feel yet more spiteful. She displayed no
commendable cunning when, to sharpen and fortify Braintop's wits, she
plumped him at breakfast with all things tempting to the appetite of
man. "I'll help ye to 'rr," she said from time to time, finding that no
encouragement made him potent in speech.

Fronting the sea a desk was laid open. On it were the quills faithfully
brought down by Braintop.

"Pole's own quills," she said, having fixed Braintop in this official
seat, while she took hers at a station half-commanding the young clerk's
face. The mighty breakfast had given Braintop intolerable desire
to stretch his limbs by the sounding shore, and enjoy life in
semi-oblivion. He cheered himself with the reflection that there was
only one letter to write, so he remarked politely that he was at his
hostess's disposal. Thereat Mrs. Chump questioned him closely whether
Mr. Pole had spoken her name aloud; and whether he did it somehow, now
and then by accident, and whether he had looked worse of late. Braintop
answered the latter question first, assuring her that Mr. Pole was
improving.

"Then there's no marcy from me," said Mrs. Chump; and immediately
discharged an exclamatory narrative of her recent troubles, and the
breach between herself and Brookfield, at Braintop's ears. This done,
she told him that he was there to write the reply to the letters of the
ladies, in her name. "Begin," she said. "Ye've got head enough to guess
my feelin's. I'm invited, and I won't go--till I'm fetched. But don't
say that. That's their guess ye know. 'And I don't care for ye enough to
be angry at all, but it's pity I feel at a parcel of fine garls'--so on,
Mr. Braintop."

The perplexities of epistolary correspondence were assuming the like
proportions to the recruited secretary that they had worn to Mrs.
Chump. Steadily watching his cou