And in the chatter and congratulations that followed the toast, Nell and Hugh were both happily forgotten. All the same, she wished he had not taken her communication so much to heart, and was dreadfully afraid lest his evident avoidance of Panty-cuckoo Farm should end by directing some sort of suspicion towards herself. It was about this time that Nell perceived that there was something decidedly wrong with her father. Not in health, but in mind. He seemed to regard everything in its worst light, and to have some objection to make to whatever might be said to him. If her mother remarked how comfortable and happy Hetty was in her new home, Mr Llewellyn would observe,-- ‘Ay, ay, it’s just as well she’s feathered her nest before troubles come,’ or if Nell said she felt stronger and better for the fine weather, it would be, ‘Well, I don’t know as it’s a thing to crow over. Many a person’s happier dead than alive.’ At last one morning she came down to breakfast to find him in a brown study over a lawyer’s letter, which had reached him in a long, blue envelope. The postman was a rare visitor at Panty-cuckoo Farm. The Llewellyns had not many relatives, and were not a writing family, if they had had them. Everything went on too simply with them to require much correspondence. Above all, a lawyer’s letter was a rarity. ‘Had bad news, father?’ inquired Nell, as she met him. ‘Ay, my lass, as bad as it could well be. Sir Archibald Bowmant’s going to raise the rent of the old farm again, and I don’t know how it’s to be made to pay it. Times have been awful bad the last year or two, Nell. Of course, the mother didn’t say nothing to you up in London town about it. Where was the use? You was well provided for in a rare good and respectable situation; we knew you was safe, and didn’t want to worry you with our troubles. But since Sir Archibald’s married this new lady he’s been an altered man. He used to think a deal of his tenants in the old times, and I don’t say he’s a bad landlord now, but she runs him into a lot of money, I hear, and then the land has to pay for it. Here’s a notice from the solicitor, to say the rents will all be raised again after next summer. It’s deuced hard on a man like me. I’ve spent more than I knew where to put my hand on, this autumn, draining and manuring, and now I shall have to pay all I hoped to make by it on the rent. But it can’t go on for ever. The worm will turn some day, and I shall chuck up the farm and emigrate.’ ‘Oh, father, don’t talk like that!’ cried his wife. ‘What would you and I do emigrating at our age? ’Tisn’t as if we were young and strong. We should die before we had crossed the sea. We’ll get on right enough, now I’ve got Nell to help me with the dairy, and that must keep us going till you’re straight again.’