“In happier times I should have thought this letter very far from being a satisfactory one, and I should have been seriously alarmed by that allusion to a future confidence on her part which will try my love for her as nothing has tried it yet.  But after all the suspense I have suffered, the happiness of seeing her handwriting again seems to fill my heart and to keep all other feelings out of it.  I don’t send you her letter, because I know you are coming to me soon, and I want to have the pleasure of seeing you read it.

“Ever affectionately yours,

“NORAH.

“P.S.—­Mr. George Bartram called on Mrs. Tyrrel to-day.  He insisted on being introduced to the children.  When he was gone, Mrs. Tyrrel laughed in her good-humored way, and said that his anxiety to see the children looked, to her mind, very much like an anxiety to see me.  You may imagine how my spirits are improved when I can occupy my pen in writing such nonsense as this!”

V.

From Mrs. Lecount to Mr. de Bleriot, General Agent, London.

“St. Crux, October 23d, 1847.

“DEAR SIR—­I have been long in thanking you for the kind letter which promises me your assistance, in friendly remembrance of the commercial relations formerly existing between my brother and yourself.  The truth is, I have over-taxed my strength on my recovery from a long and dangerous illness; and for the last ten days I have been suffering under a relapse.  I am now better again, and able to enter on the business which you so kindly offer to undertake for me.

“The person whose present place of abode it is of the utmost importance to me to discover is Mr. Noel Vanstone.  I have lived, for many years past, in this gentleman’s service as house-keeper; and not having received my formal dismissal, I consider myself in his service still.  During my absence on the Continent he was privately married at Aldborough, in Suffolk, on the eighteenth of August last.  He left Aldborough the same day, taking his wife with him to some place of retreat which was kept a secret from everybody except his lawyer, Mr. Loscombe, of Lincoln’s Inn.  After a short time he again removed, on the 4th of September, without informing Mr. Loscombe, on this occasion, of his new place of abode.  From that date to this the lawyer has remained (or has pretended to remain) in total ignorance of where he now is.  Application has been made to Mr. Loscombe, under the circumstances, to mention what that former place of residence was, of which Mr. Vanstone is known to have informed him.  Mr. Loscombe has declined acceding to this request, for want of formal permission to disclose his client’s proceedings after leaving Aldborough.  I have all these latter particulars from Mr. Loscombe’s correspondent—­the nephew of the gentleman who owns this house, and whose charity has given me an asylum, during the heavy affliction of my sickness, under his own roof.