The same dense, disheartening obscurity hangs over the fate and fortunes of Anne Catherick, and her companion, Mrs. Clements.  Nothing whatever has been heard of either of them.  Whether they are in the country or out of it, whether they are living or dead, no one knows.  Even Sir Percival’s solicitor has lost all hope, and has ordered the useless search after the fugitives to be finally given up.

Our good old friend Mr. Gilmore has met with a sad check in his active professional career.  Early in the spring we were alarmed by hearing that he had been found insensible at his desk, and that the seizure was pronounced to be an apoplectic fit.  He had been long complaining of fulness and oppression in the head, and his doctor had warned him of the consequences that would follow his persistency in continuing to work, early and late, as if he were still a young man.  The result now is that he has been positively ordered to keep out of his office for a year to come, at least, and to seek repose of body and relief of mind by altogether changing his usual mode of life.  The business is left, accordingly, to be carried on by his partner, and he is himself, at this moment, away in Germany, visiting some relations who are settled there in mercantile pursuits.  Thus another true friend and trustworthy adviser is lost to us—­lost, I earnestly hope and trust, for a time only.

Poor Mrs. Vesey travelled with me as far as London.  It was impossible to abandon her to solitude at Limmeridge after Laura and I had both left the house, and we have arranged that she is to live with an unmarried younger sister of hers, who keeps a school at Clapham.  She is to come here this autumn to visit her pupil—­I might almost say her adopted child.  I saw the good old lady safe to her destination, and left her in the care of her relative, quietly happy at the prospect of seeing Laura again in a few months’ time.

As for Mr. Fairlie, I believe I am guilty of no injustice if I describe him as being unutterably relieved by having the house clear of us women.  The idea of his missing his niece is simply preposterous—­he used to let months pass in the old times without attempting to see her—­and in my case and Mrs. Vesey’s, I take leave to consider his telling us both that he was half heart-broken at our departure, to be equivalent to a confession that he was secretly rejoiced to get rid of us.  His last caprice has led him to keep two photographers incessantly employed in producing sun-pictures of all the treasures and curiosities in his possession.  One complete copy of the collection of the photographs is to be presented to the Mechanics’ Institution of Carlisle, mounted on the finest cardboard, with ostentatious red-letter inscriptions underneath, “Madonna and Child by Raphael.  In the possession of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire.”  “Copper coin of the period of Tiglath Pileser.  In the possession of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire.”  “Unique Rembrandt etching.  Known all over