‘Mine was marked private too,’ said Charlotte, slowly, as she fixed her eyes on the envelope Marianne held out to her, and putting her hand into her pocket, pulled out a similar one, directed to Miss Arnold.

Marianne scarcely suppressed a shriek, gasped, and turned pale.  Each lady then proceeded to unfold a pink sheet of note-paper, containing an original copy of verses, each labelled, ‘On a hair of —.’  Then came a scented shining note, requesting to be informed whether the right construction had been put on some words that had dropped from the Miss Conways, and if it were true that the reverend and respected Mr. F. Dynevor had come into a large fortune.  In that case, Mr. Delaford, mercenary considerations apart, would take the earliest opportunity of resigning his present position, and entering the family which contained his charmer.

The Merry Wives were parodied by the hysterical maids.  Charlotte might afford to laugh, but Marianne’s heart was more in the matter, and they struck up such a chorus that Jane broke upon them, declaring that they would frighten Mrs. James Frost out of her senses.  When Charlotte told her what was the matter, her comment was, ’And a very good thing, too, that you should find him out in time!  A pair of silly girls you!  I always was thankful I never could write, to be deluded with nonsense by the post; and I am more so than ever now!  Come, leave off crying, Marianne; he ain’t worth it.’

‘But how shall we answer him, Mrs. Beckett?’ said Charlotte.

‘Never demean yourself to answer him,’ said Jane; ’let him never hear nought about you—­that’s the best for the like of him.  I can tell him he need not be in no hurry about giving warning to Lady Conway.  At Cheveleigh we’ll have a solemn, steady butler, with no nonsense, nor verses, nor guitars—­forty years old—­and a married man.’

Charlotte took the advice, and acted with dignified contempt and silence, relieved to imagine that Tom had never been in danger from such a rival.  Marianne did not divulge the tender and melancholy letter of reproach that she posted privately; but she grew paler, and coughed more, all that bright summer.

Mrs. Frost had refused to let any cause remove her from Northwold, until after an event which it was hoped would render James less disdainful of his inheritance.  But—­’Was there ever anything more contrary?’ exclaimed Jane, as she prepared to set out the table for a grand tea.  ’There’s Master James as pleased and proud of that there little brown girl, as if she was as fine a boy as Master Henry himself.  I do believe, upon my word, it is all to spite poor dear Master Oliver.’

Poor Jane, she was almost growing tart in her partizanship of Oliver.

The little brown girl was no dove of peace.  Her father decidedly triumphed in the mortification that her sex was to others of the family; and though he averred that the birth of a son would not have made him change his mind, he was well satisfied to be spared the attack which would have ensued.  Oliver, like Jane, appeared to regard the poor child as a wilful offence, and revenged himself by a letter announcing that Clara would be his heiress, information which Mrs. Frost kindly withheld from her granddaughter, in the hope of a reconciliation.