a vicious, disorderly establishment; and she understood why
a careful mother would as soon have sent her daughter to service at the
lowest public-house as at Beauchamp.

Mervyn had detected one of the footmen in a flagrant act of peculation,
and had dismissed him, but Phoebe believed the evil to have extended far
more widely than he supposed, and made up her mind to entreat him to
investigate matters. In vain, however, she sought for a favourable
moment, for he was never alone. The intervals between other visitors
were filled up by a Mr. Hastings, who seemed to have erected himself into
so much of the domesticated friend that he had established a bowing and
speaking acquaintance with Phoebe; Bertha no longer narrated her escapes
of encounters with him; and, being the only one of the gentlemen who ever
went to church, he often joined the young ladies as they walked back from
thence. Phoebe heartily wished him gone, for he made her brother
inaccessible; she only saw Mervyn when he wanted her to find something
for him or to give her a message, and if she ventured to say that she
wanted to speak to him, he promised--'Some time or other'--which always
proved _sine die_. He was looking very ill, his complexion very much
flushed, and his hand heated and unsteady, and she heard through Lieschen
of his having severe morning headaches, and fits of giddiness and
depression, but these seemed to make him more unable to spare Mr.
Hastings, as if life would not be endurable without the billiards that
she sometimes heard knocking about half the night.

However, the anniversary of Mr. Fulmort's death would bring his executor
to clear off one branch of his business, and Mervyn's friends fled before
the coming of the grave old lawyer, all fixing the period of their
departure before Christmas. Nor could Mervyn go with them; he must meet
Mr. Crabbe, and Phoebe's heart quite bounded at the hope of being able to
walk about the house in comfort, and say part of what was on her mind to
her brother.

'Whose writing is this?' said Phoebe to herself, as the letters were
given to her, two days before the clearance of the house. 'I ought to
know it--It is! No! Yes, indeed it is--poor Lucy. Where can she be?
What can she have to say?'

The letter was dateless, and Phoebe's amaze grew as she read.

'DEAR PHOEBE,

'You know it is my nature to do odd things, so never mind that, but
attend to me, as one who knows too well what