I haven’t even seen my father. He has not come near me once! Saffy wouldn’t look at me for a long time—that’s the last of the litter, you know. She shrieked when they called to her to come to me, and cried, “That’s ugly Corney! I won’t have ugly Corney!” So you may see how I am used! But I’ve got her under my thumb at last, and she’s useful. Then there’s that prig Mark! I always liked the little wretch, though he is such a precious humbug! He’s in bed—put out his knee, or something. He never had any stamina in him! Scrofulous, don’t you know! They won’t let me go near him—for fear of frightening him! But that’s that braggart, major Marvel—and a marvel he is, I can tell you! He comes to me sometimes, and makes me hate him—talks as if I wasn’t as good as he,—as if I wasn’t even a gentleman! Many’s the time I long to be back in the garret—horrid place! alone with my little Amy!

So went the letter.

When Amy next appeared she was in another mood. Her eyes were red and her hair was in disorder. She had been lying now on the bed, now on the floor, pulling at her hair, and stuffing her handkerchief in her mouth.

“Well, what is the news?” asked Miss Dasomma, as kindly as she could speak, and as if she saw nothing peculiar in her appearance.

“You must excuse me,” replied Amy, with the stiffness of a woman of the world resenting intrusion. “Do not think me unkind, but there is positively nothing in the letter that would interest anyone but me.”

Miss Dasomma said nothing more. Perhaps she was going to escape without further questioning! And though she was anxious about what the letter might have contained to have put the poor girl in such a state, she would not risk the asking of a single question more.

The solemn fact was that his letter, in conjunction with the word Miss Dasomma let slip, had at last begun to open Amy’s eyes a little to the real character of her husband. She herself had seen a good deal of his family, and found it hard to believe they would treat him unkindly. Something must be at the root of it all, something she did not know about, the same thing that made him take to the garret and hide there! The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that he had done something hideously wrong.