"You're a fool."

"That's true, ma'am, I don't doubt."

"I've sent for her, and we must do the best we can. Perhaps she won't
come."

"She'll come fast enough," said Martha. "But whether she'll stay,
that's a different thing. I don't see how it's possible she's to
stay. I'm told they're feckless, idle young ladies. She'll be so
soft, ma'am, and you,--"

"Well; what of me?"

"You'll be so hard, ma'am!"

"I'm not a bit harder than you, Martha; nor yet so hard. I'll do my
duty, or at least I'll try. Now you know all about it, and you may go
away. There's the letter, and I mean to go out and post it myself."

CHAPTER VIII.

"I KNOW IT WILL DO."

Miss Stanbury carried her letter all the way to the chief post-office
in the city, having no faith whatever in those little subsidiary
receiving houses which are established in different parts of the
city. As for the iron pillar boxes which had been erected of late
years for the receipt of letters, one of which,--a most hateful thing
to her,--stood almost close to her own hall door, she had not the
faintest belief that any letter put into one of them would ever reach
its destination. She could not understand why people should not walk
with their letters to a respectable post-office instead of chucking
them into an iron stump,--as she called it,--out in the middle of the
street with nobody to look after it. Positive orders had been given
that no letter from her house should ever be put into the iron post.
Her epistle to her sister-in-law, of whom she never spoke otherwise
than as Mrs. Stanbury, was as follows:--

The Close, Exeter, 22nd April, 186--.

MY DEAR SISTER STANBURY,

Your son, Hugh, has taken to courses of which I do not
approve, and therefore I have put an end to my connection
with him. I shall be happy to entertain your daughter
Dorothy in my house if you and she approve of such a plan.
Should you agree to this, she will be welcome to receive
you or her sister,--_not her brother_,--in my house any
Wednesday morning between half-past nine and half-past
twelve. I will endeavour to make my house pleasant to her
and useful, and will make her an allowance of L25 per
annum for her clothes as long as she may remain with me. I
shall expect her to be regular at meals, to be constant in
going to church, and not to read modern novels.

I intend the arrangement to be permanent, but of course I
must retain t