's letters
were to be directed to him at his Club. The men were still at work
about the place; but Ambrose told him that they were all at sea as
to what they should do, and appealed to him for orders. "If we shut
off on Saturday, sir, the whole place'll be a muck of mud and nothin'
else all winter," said the gardener. The Vicar suggested that after
all a muck of mud outside the house wouldn't do much harm. "But
master ain't the man to put up with that all'ays, and it'll cost
twice as much to have 'em about the place again arter a bit." This,
however, was the least trouble. If Ambrose was disconsolate out of
doors, the man who was looking after the work indoors was twice more
so. "If we be to work on up to Saturday night," he said, "and then do
never a stroke more, we be a doing nothing but mischief. Better leave
it at once nor that, sir." Then Fenwick was obliged to take upon
himself to give certain orders. The papering of the rooms should be
finished where the walls had been already disturbed, and the cornices
completed, and the wood-work painted. But as for the furniture,
hangings, and such like, they should be left till further orders
should be received from the owner. As for the mud and muck in the
garden, his only care was that the place should not be so left as to
justify the neighbours in saying that Mr. Gilmore was demented. But
he would be able to get instructions from his friend, or perhaps to
see him, in time to save danger in that respect.

In the meantime Mary Lowther had gone up to her room, and seated
herself with her blotting-book and pens and ink. She had now before
her the pleasure,--or was it a task?--of answering her cousin's
letter. She had that letter in her hand, and had already read it
twice this morning. She had thought that she would so well know how
to answer it; but, now that the pen was in her hand, she found that
the thing to be done was not so easy. How much must she tell him, and
how should she tell it? It was not that there was anything which she
desired to keep back from him. She was willing,--nay, desirous,--that
he should know all that she had said, and done, and thought; but it
would have been a blessing if all could have been told to him by
other agency than her own. He would not condemn her. Nor, as she
thought of her own conduct back from one scene to another, did she
condemn herself. Yet there was that of which she could not write
without a feeling of shame. And then, how could