Her letter arrived at No. 5, on the next Monday morning at breakfast-time.  It did not at first attract the attention of James.  The Sunday exertions had again left a mental and physical lassitude, showing how much care and privation had told upon his strength; and Isabel’s still tardy convalescence weighed him down with anxiety for the future, and almost with despair, as he thought of the comforts for want of which she suffered, though so patiently and silently dispensing with them.  To his further vexation, he had, on the previous Saturday, seen Charlotte receiving at the back-door an amount of meat beyond her orders; and, having checked himself because too angry and too much grieved to speak at once, had reserved the reproof for the Monday, when Charlotte brought in her book of petty disbursements.

Failing to detect the obnoxious item, he said, ’Where’s the account of the meat that came in on Saturday?’

‘There, sir!’ said Charlotte, indicating the legitimate amount, but blushing violently.

‘That was not all?’ he said, with a look of stern, interrogation.

‘Oh! if you please, sir, that was nothing!’

’This will not do, Charlotte!  I can have nothing taken into my house without being paid for.  I insist on knowing what you could mean?’

‘Oh, sir!’ tearfully exclaimed the girl, ’it is paid for—­I’ll show you the account, if you will—­with my own money.  I’d not have had you hear of it for the world; but I could not bear that nurse’s insinuations about her meat five times a-day—­she that never nursed nothing like a real lady before!  But I meant no harm, sir; and I hope you’ll excuse the liberty, for I did not mean to take none; and I’m sure I’m quite contented for my own part, nor never meant to complain.’

‘I know you did not, Charlotte!  You are only too patient and kind—­’ But his voice broke down, and he was forced silently to sign to her to leave him.

‘Can humiliation go farther!’ he thought.  ’My boasted independence ending in this poor, faithful servant being stung, by the sneers of this hired woman, into eking out her scanty meals with her own insufficient wages!’

Little Catharine, who had been gazing with dilated black eyes, came scrambling on his knee to caress him, perceiving that he was grieved.

‘Ah!  Kitty, Kitty!’ he said, ’it is well that you are too young to feel these troubles!’

‘Papa! letter!’ cried Kitty, waving the unregarded letter in the triumph of discovery.

‘The Reverend James Frost.’  It was the writing formed by his own copies, which he could not see without a sharp pang of self-reproach for cruel injustice and unkindness.

Kitty slid down with the empty envelope to act reading to the twins, whom she caught by turns as they crawled away, and set up straight before her.  Her operations and their remonstrances, though as loud as they were inarticulate, passed utterly unheard and unheeded by their father, as he read:—­