There was old General Bartholomew, who had known her father.  There was Mrs. Ransome.  No, she believed now that she had heard that Mrs. Ransome was dead; perhaps the General too, yet she would risk it.  There was Lady Linden, Marjorie Linden’s aunt.  She knew but little of her, but remembered her as at heart a kindly, though an autocratic dame.  She remembered, too, that one of Lady Linden’s hobbies had been to establish Working Guilds and Rural Industries, Village Crafts, and suchlike in her village.  In connection with some of these there might be work for her.

She wrote to all that she could think of, a letter of which she made six facsimile copies.  It was not a begging appeal, but a dignified little reminder of her existence.

“If you could assist me to obtain any work by which I might live, you would be putting me under a deep debt of gratitude,” she wrote.

Before she slept that night all six letters were in the post.  She wished them good luck one by one as she dropped them into the letter-box, the six sprats that had been flung into the sea of fortune.  Would one of them catch for her a mackerel?  She wondered.

“You’d best take back that notice,” Slotman said to her the next morning.  “You won’t find it so precious easy to find a job, my girl; and, after all, what have I done?”

“Annoyed me, insulted me ever since I came here,” she said quietly.  “And of course I shall not stay!”

“Insulted you!  Is it an insult to ask you to be my wife?”

“It seems so to me,” she said quietly.  “If you had meant that—­at first—­it would have been different; now it is only an insult!”

Three days passed, and there came answers.  She had been right, Mrs. Ransome was dead, and there was no one who could do anything for Miss Meredyth.

General Bartholomew was at Harrogate, and her letter had been sent on to him there, wrote a polite secretary.  And then there came a letter that warmed the girl’s heart and brought back all her belief and faith in human nature.

    “My dearest child,

“Your letter came as a welcome surprise—­to think that you are looking for employment!  Well, we must see to this—­I promise you, you will not have far to look.  Come here to me at once, and be sure that everything will be put right and all misunderstandings wiped out.  I am keeping your letter a secret from everyone, even from Marjorie, that your coming shall be the more unexpected, and the greater surprise and pleasure.  But come without delay, and believe me to be,

      “Your very affectionate friend,
        “Harriet Linden.”

“P.S.—­I suggest that you wire me the day and the train, so that I can meet you.  Don’t lose any time, and be sure that all past unhappiness can be ended, and the future faced with the certainty of brighter and happier days.”

Over this letter Joan Meredyth pondered a great deal.  It was a warm-hearted and affectionate response to her somewhat stilted little appeal.  Yet what did the old lady mean, to what did the veiled reference apply?