d he can't come in the middle
of the night; but would half-past ten be late enough?"

"Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Mitchell, somewhat puzzled. "Well, we must sit
up for him if necessary; but I did hope that Thomas would have his
proper nights' rests here in the country. We ought all to be in bed by
ten o'clock."

"You see, Rowles cannot leave the lock unless he gets a deputy. Philip
is hardly strong enough by himself. And Ned says that of course Tom
can't come to the lock, being at work all night and asleep all day."

"That will not be the case here," said Mitchell smiling. "Besides,
there's one or two things that I may as well explain to Rowles. Seems
to me he's got some ideas upside down in his head."

"Oh, I don't know!" cried Mrs. Rowles; "but my idea is that you had
better have your suppers now and go to bed as quick as you can.
There'll be lots of new things to see to-morrow. And if Ned can't come
you'll be sure to have Mr. Robert the butler at Bourne House, and the
housekeeper. You see, they all know Juliet--" Here Mrs. Rowles broke
off, and Juliet shrank away, feeling bitterly that they knew little
that was good of her.

She was, however, able to eat her supper with the rest of her family,
and to sleep on the shake-down of blankets, and to rise in the morning
refreshed and happy and ready for the new life before her.

The carrier arrived about eleven o'clock that morning, and the few
bits of furniture and so forth which had come from London were put,
one by one, in new places. Mrs. Mitchell said that a pound of paint
would touch them up quite smart-like.

Thomas Mitchell and Albert had not stayed at Honeysuckle Cottage to
see the arrival of these goods, but had gone to the works to meet Mr.
Burnet there at nine o'clock. They were told by the foreman to go into
the office, and there they awaited the arrival of the master.

Mr. Burnet soon appeared, and after a few words of greeting took a key
from his pocket and opened the letter-box. From it he took a large
number of business letters. He laid them into several separate heaps.
Then he pressed the button of an electric-bell, and a lad came in from
some other part of the buildings.

"Here, Willie, take these letters, if you please. One for Mr. Toop,
one for Mr. Richard Macnunn, two for Mr. Plasket, and here is a very
fat one for 'Arthur George Rayner, Esq., Foreman at the Works of the
_Thames Valley Times and Post_, Littlebourne, Berkshire, England.' It
reall