ken to dine with her at a
restaurant, and afterwards they had spent an hour or two at Miss
Featherstone's lodgings.

'I didn't go near Tulse Hill, and if you knew how I am wondering
what is going on there! Not a line from anyone. I shall write to
mother to-morrow.'

Emmeline produced a letter which had arrived for Miss Derrick.

'Why didn't you give it me before?' Louise exclaimed, impatiently.

'My dear, you had so much to tell me. I waited for the first pause.'

'That isn't from home,' said the girl, after a glance at the
envelope. 'It's nothing.'

After saying good-night, she called to Emmeline from her bedroom
door. Entering the room, Mrs. Mumford saw the open letter in
Louise's hand, and read in her face a desire of confession.

'I want to tell you something. Don't be in a hurry; just a few
minutes. This letter is from Mr. Bowling. Yes, and I've had one from
him before, and I was obliged to answer it.'

'Do you mean they are love-letters?'

'Yes, I'm afraid they are. And it's so stupid, and I'm so vexed. I
don't want to have anything to do with him, as I told you long ago.'
Louise often used expressions which to a stranger would have implied
that her intimacy with Mrs. Mumford was of years' standing. 'He
wrote for the first time last week. Such a silly letter! I wish you
would read it. Well, he said that it was all over between him and
Cissy, and that he cared only for me, and always had, and always
would--you know how men write. He said he considered himself quite
free. Cissy had refused him, and wasn't that enough? Now that I was
away from home, he could write to me, and wouldn't I let him see me?
Of course I wrote that I didn't _want_ to see him, and I thought he
was behaving very badly--though I don't really think so, because
it's all that idiot Cissy's fault. Didn't I do quite right?'

'I think so.'

'Very well. And now he's writing again, you see; oh, such a lot of
rubbish! I can hear him saying it all through his nose. Do tell me
what I ought to do next.'

'You must either pay no attention to the letter, or reply so that he
can't possibly misunderstand you.'

'Call him names, you mean?'

'My dear Louise!'

'But that's the only way with such men. I suppose you never were
bothered with them. I think I'd better not write at all.'

Emmeline approved this course, and soon left Miss Derrick to her
reflections.

The next day Louise carried out her resolve to write for information
regarding t