ould have dared to knock, and shake, and kick the
door as the new arrivals were doing. Mr Wentworth sat still as long as
he could, then he added to the din they were making outside by an
indignant ring of his own bell; and finally getting anxious, as was
natural, and bethinking himself of his father's attack and Mr
Wodehouse's illness, the Curate took the matter into his own hands,
and hastened down-stairs to open the door. Mrs Hadwin called to him as
he passed her room, thinking it was Sarah, and begging for goodness
gracious sake to know directly what was the matter; and he felt
himself growing agitated as he drew back the complicated bolts, and
turned the key in the door, which was elaborately defenced, as was
natural. When he hurried out into the garden, the songs of the birds
and the morning air seemed to have changed their character. He
thought he was about to be summoned to the deathbed of one or other of
the old men upon whom their sons had brought such misery. He was but
little acquainted with the fastenings of the garden-door, and fumbled
a little over them in his anxiety. "Wait a moment and you shall be
admitted," he called out to those outside, who still continued to
knock; and he fancied, even in the haste and confusion of the moment,
that his voice caused some little commotion among them. Mr Wentworth
opened the door, looking anxiously out for some boy with a telegram,
or other such mournful messenger; but to his utter amazement was
nearly knocked down by the sudden plunge of Elsworthy, who entered
with a spring like that of a wild animal, and whose face looked white
and haggard as he rushed in. He came against the Curate so roughly as
to drive him a step or two farther into the garden, and naturally
aroused somewhat sharply the temper of the young man, who had already
begun to regard him with disagreeable sensations as a kind of spy
against himself.

"What in the world do you want at such an early hour in the morning?"
cried Mr Wentworth--"and what do you mean by making such a noise? Is
Mr Wodehouse worse? or what has happened?" for, to tell the truth, he
was a little relieved to find that the two people outside both
belonged to Carlingford, and that nowhere was there any visible
apparition of a telegraph boy.

"Don't trifle with me, Mr Wentworth," said Elsworthy. "I'm a poor man;
but a worm as is trodden on turns. I want my child, sir!--give me my
child. I'll find her out if it was at the end of the wo