d of Cousin Monica to stay with me so long. It must have
been unspeakably tiresome. And now she began to talk of business at home,
and plainly to prepare for immediate flight, and my heart sank.

I know that I could not then have defined my feelings and agitations. I am
not sure that I even now could. Any misgiving about Uncle Silas was, in my
mind, a questioning the foundations of my faith, and in itself an impiety.
And yet I am not sure that some such misgiving, faint, perhaps, and
intermittent, may not have been at the bottom of my tribulation.

I was not very well. Lady Knollys had gone out for a walk. She was not
easily tired, and sometimes made a long excursion. The sun was setting now,
when Mary Quince brought me a letter which had just arrived by the post. My
heart throbbed violently. I was afraid to break the broad black seal. It
was from Uncle Silas. I ran over in my mind all the unpleasant mandates
which it might contain, to try and prepare myself for a shock. At last
I opened the letter. It directed me to hold myself in readiness for the
journey to Bartram-Haugh. It stated that I might bring two maids with me if
I wished so many, and that his next letter would give me the details of my
route, and the day of my departure for Derbyshire; and he said that I ought
to make arrangements about Knowl during my absence, but that he was hardly
the person properly to be consulted on that matter. Then came a prayer that
he might be enabled to acquit himself of his trust to the full satisfaction
of his conscience, and that I might enter upon my new relations in a spirit
of prayer.

I looked round my room, so long familiar, and now so endeared by the idea
of parting and change. The old house--dear, dear Knowl, how could I leave
you and all your affectionate associations, and kind looks and voices, for
a strange land!

With a great sigh I took Uncle Silas's letter, and went down stairs to the
drawing-room. From the lobby window, where I loitered for a few moments,
I looked out upon the well-known forest-trees. The sun was down. It was
already twilight, and the white vapours of coming night were already
filming their thinned and yellow foliage. Everything looked melancholy.
How little did those who envied the young inheritrex of a princely fortune
suspect the load that lay at her heart, or, bating the fear of death, how
gladly at that moment she would have parted with her life!

Lady Knollys had not yet returned, and it