that letter or its writer. But how to answer it! In imagination
she had already penned twenty different replies. How not to be grasping
or effusive, and yet to show that you could feel and repay
kindness--there was the problem!

Meanwhile, from that letter, or rather in subtle connection with it, her
thoughts at last went wandering off with a natural zest to her new realm
of Mellor, and to all that she would and could do for the dwellers
therein.

CHAPTER IV.

It was a bleak east-wind day towards the end of March. Aldous was at
work in the library at the Court, writing at his grandfather's table,
where in general he got through his estate and county affairs, keeping
his old sitting-room upstairs for the pursuits that were more
particularly his own.

All the morning he had been occupied with a tedious piece of local
business, wading through endless documents concerning a dispute between
the head-master of a neighbouring grammar-school and his governing body,
of which Aldous was one. The affair was difficult, personal, odious. To
have wasted nearly three hours upon it was, to a man of Aldous's type,
to have lost a day. Besides he had not his grandfather's knack in such
things, and was abundantly conscious of it.

However, there it was, a duty which none but he apparently could or
would do, and he had been wrestling with it. With more philosophy than
usual, too, since every tick of the clock behind him bore him nearer to
an appointment which, whatever it might be, would not be tedious.

At last he got up and went to the window to look at the weather. A
cutting wind, clearly, but no rain. Then he walked into the
drawing-room, calling for his aunt. No one was to be seen, either there
or in the conservatory, and he came back to the library and rang.

"Roberts, has Miss Raeburn gone out?"

"Yes, my lord," said the old butler addressed. "She and Miss Macdonald
have gone out driving, and I was to tell your lordship that Miss Raeburn
would drop Miss Macdonald at Mellor on her way home."

"Is Sir Frank anywhere about?"

"He was in the smoking-room a little while ago, my lord."

"Will you please try and find him?"

"Yes, my lord."

Aldous's mouth twitched with impatience as the old servant shut the
door.

"How many times did Roberts manage to be-lord me in a minute?" he asked
himself; "yet if I were to remonstrate, I suppose I should only make him
unhappy."

And walking again to the window, he thrust hi