The first difficulty was to get her settled at the Hall.  What was the best way to set about that?  It certainly was not as easy as she seemed to think, still there must be some way of managing it.  At any rate he must act cautiously in the matter, and must not appear in it in any way personally.  And so he sat thinking, until at last the clerk, who had been a good deal surprised at receiving no instruction from him as to several matters he had in hand, knocked at the door, and came in with a number of papers, and Mr. Tallboys was obliged to dismiss the matter from his mind for a time, and to attend to present business.  The very next morning Mrs. Conway received the note, and again went to the office.

“Do you know, Mrs. Conway,” he began, as soon as his client entered, “the more I think over the matter, the more I feel that it is extremely difficult to manage it from here.  I should have to engage some one to go over in the first place.  He would have to stay in the village some time before he could make the acquaintance of the servants at the Hall.  He would have to get very intimate with them before he could venture to broach such a thing for if he made a mistake, and the woman told her mistress that some one had been trying to persuade her to leave in order to introduce another into the place, their suspicions would be so aroused that the scheme would become hopeless.”

“Yes, I see the difficulty, Mr. Tallboys; for I thought it over in every way before I came to you.  Beside I don’t like the thought of this intermediate.  No doubt you would choose a trustworthy man.  Still I don’t like the thought of any one knowing the secret, especially as the plan may take so long working out.”

“What I have been thinking, Mrs. Conway is this.  No doubt the servants at the Hall have taken sides on this matter.  Of course from our searches there they know that Mr. Penfold’s will is missing, and that it is because it is missing that the Miss Penfolds are now mistresses there.  Without knowing anything myself about the feelings of the servants there, beyond what would probably be the case from the difference of character between Mr. Penfold and his sisters, I should imagine that they were fond of him, for he was the kindest and most easy-going of masters, and not very fond of his sisters, who are, as I have always observed in the course of my professional visits there, the reverse of agreeable.

“If this is the case, not improbably there may be one or other of these women with whom you might open direct negotiations.  What has struck me is this.  The men who were over there with me of course slept and took their meals in the village; still, going about as they did in the house, no doubt they talked with the servants.  The Miss Penfolds were away, and I dare say the women had plenty of time to gossip; and it is probable the men gathered from their talk something of their sentiments toward the Miss Penfolds and their brother, and which side they would be likely to go with.  I might ask the foreman about it.”