I must confess you had a better opinion of me than I deserved:  for jealousy did indeed suggest that you had very small kindness for me.  When you sent the parcel to my sister Lambert, and wrote to her and sister Emme, and not to me, I was much worse grieved than before.  Though I cannot possibly be so vain as to think that I do for my own personal merits deserve more love than my sisters, yet can you blame me if I sometimes wish I had been so happy as to have the first place in your heart?

Sister Emme is gone to Lincoln again, of which I’m very glad for her own sake; for she is weak and our misfortunes daily impair her health.  Sister Kezzy, too, will have a fair chance of going.  I believe if sister Molly stays long at home it will be because she can’t get away.  It is likely in a few years’ time our family may be lessened—­perhaps none left but your poor sister Martha, for whose welfare few are concerned.

My father has been at Louth to see sister Wright, who by good providence was brought to bed two days before he got thither; which perhaps might prevent his saying what he otherwise might have said to her; for none that deserves the name of man would say anything to grieve a woman in a condition where grief is often present death to them.  I fancy you have heard before now that her child is dead.

Of these letters but a faint echo reached Hetty as she lay in her bed at Louth—­a few words transcribed by Charles from the one (No. 2) received by him, and sent with his affectionate inquiries.  He added that Molly had also written to Jack, but to what effect he knew not; only that Jack, after reading it in his presence, had ‘pish’d’ and pocketed it in a huff.

She lay in a darkened room, with her own hopes at their darkest—­or rather, their blankest.  She had journeyed to Wroote, and from her humble lodging there had written an honest letter to her father, begging only to see her mother or Molly, promising to hold no communication with them if he refused.  He had refused, in a curt note of three lines.  From Wroote she returned to Louth, to face her trouble alone; for the preliminaries of selling the Lincoln business had brought old Wright’s creditors about her husband’s ears like a swarm of wasps.  Until then they had waited with fair patience:  but no sooner did he make a perfectly honest move towards paying them off in a lump than the whole swarm took panic and he was forced to decamp to London to escape the sponging-house.  There Uncle Matthew came to the rescue, satisfied immediate claims, and guaranteed the rest.  But meanwhile Hetty’s child—­a boy, as she had prayed—­was born, and died on the third day after birth.