had sent the burial money anonymously to Bangbury, our
servant came to me and said there was a stranger at the door who wished
to see my brother, and was so bent on it that he would take no denial.
I went down, and found waiting on the door-steps a very
respectable-looking, middle-aged man, whom I had certainly never set
eyes on before in my life.

"I told him that I was Joshua's sister, and that I managed my brother's
affairs for him in the present state of his health. The stranger only
answered, that he was very anxious to see Joshua himself. I did
not choose to expose the helpless condition into which my brother's
intellects had fallen, to a person of whom I knew nothing; so I merely
said, the interview he wanted was out of the question, but that if he
had any business with Mr. Grice, he might, for the reasons I had already
given, mention it to me. He hesitated, and smiled, and said he was very
much obliged to me; and then, making as if he was going to step in,
added that I should probably be able to appreciate the friendly nature
of the business on which he came, when he informed me that he was
confidentially employed by Mr. Arthur Carr.

"The instant he spoke it, I felt the name go to my heart like a
knife--then my indignation got the better of me. I told him to tell Mr.
Carr that the miserable creature whom his villainy had destroyed, had
fled away from her home, had died away from her home, and was buried
away from her home; and, with that, I shut the door in his face.
My agitation, and a sort of terror that I could not account for, so
overpowered me that I was obliged to lean against the wall of the
passage, and was unable, for some minutes, to stir a step towards going
up stairs. As soon as I got a little better, and began to think about
what had taken place, a doubt came across me as to whether I might not
have acted wrong. I remembered that Joshua's lawyers in London had made
it a great point that this Mr. Carr should be traced; and, though, since
then, our situation had been altered by my niece's death, still I felt
uncertain and uneasy--I could hardly tell why--at what I had done. It
was as if I had taken some responsibility on myself which ought not
to have been mine. In short, I ran back to the door and opened it, and
looked up and down the street. It was too late: the strange man was out
of sight, and I never set eyes on him again.

"This was in March, 1828, the same month in which the advertisement
a