Frank to go with you? That is a question to which we can
get no answer at all from Frank himself.

In your last you asked me about my affairs. Dear girl,
I have no affairs. I am in such a position that it is
impossible for me to have what you would call affairs.
Between you and Frank everything is settled. Between
me and the man to whom you allude there is nothing
settled,--except that there is no ground for settlement.
He must go one way and I another. It is very sad, you will
say. I, however, have done it for myself and I must bear
the burden.

Yours always lovingly,

EDITH.

CHAPTER XLIX.

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Jones succumbed altogether to the
difficulties which circumstances had placed in his way. His feelings
had been much hurt both by those who had chosen to call themselves
his enemies and by his friends, and under such usage he became
somewhat sullen. Having suffered a grievous misfortune he had become
violent with his children, and had been more severely hurt by the
death of the poor boy who had been murdered than he had confessed.
But he had still struggled on, saying but little to anybody till at
last he had taken Frank into his confidence, when Frank had returned
from London with his marriage engagement dissolved. And the
re-engagement had not at all interfered with the renewed intimacy
between Frank and his father, because the girl was absolved from her
singing. The father had feared that the son would go away from him,
and lead an idle life, enjoying the luxuries which her rich salary
would purchase. Frank had shared his father's feelings in this
respect, but still the squire had had his misgivings. All that was
now set to rights by the absolute destruction of poor Rachel's voice.

Poor Mr. Jones had indeed received comfort from other sources more
material than this. His relatives had put their heads together, and
had agreed to bear some part of the loss which had fallen upon the
estate; not the loss, that is, from the submerged meadows, which was
indeed Mr. Jones's own private concern, but from the injury done to
him by the commissioners. Indeed, as things went on, that injury
appeared to be less extensive than had been imagined, though the
injustice, as it struck Mr. Jones's mind, was not less egregious.
Where there was a shred of a lease the sub-commissioners were
powerless, and though attempts had been made to break the leases they