“If he trusted his letter to Carolus Ashton, probably hearing of him through some mutual artist friend, why should not I do likewise, who have known him as Lucy’s cousin all my life?” persisted Brooke. “And have him get up one of his fabulous tales about a mysterious correspondence and tantalize Lucy with it until she turns about and extracts the scant truth from him?” sneered Miss Lawton. Without deigning further reply, Brooke went to the little table by the window, where stood an inkstand, in the drawer of which were some loose sheets of paper and envelopes. Picking up one of the latter, she addressed it in her usual hand, stamped it, and then, resting it on the window ledge, drew a sheet of paper toward her and straightway fell into a brown study, during which either her brain refused to think or her hand to write. Then, suddenly starting up, she crossed to her bureau and, taking up the little picture of Eucharistia, gazed at it steadily, slipped it from the delicate silver frame, and with a sigh, half of regret, wrapped it in a sheet of note-paper and sealed it in the addressed envelope. Putting the wordless letter in the pocket of the short working apron she wore, Brooke went to the letter-box that stood at the junction of main road and lane leading to the barn, and dropped it in, that the carrier might find it that afternoon on his daily trip. Returning by way of the kitchen, the loaves of bread that Brooke had that morning kneaded, moulded, and covered for their final raising met her eye. At first, smiling at the sudden change of motive, she examined them seriously, for in reality these loaves were of no small importance, representing as they did the girl’s first independent baking. Opening the oven doors, she tested floor and side, adjusted dampers after Mrs. Peck’s custom, and then, shutting the loaves from sight, went away, feeling very much as if she had imprisoned some living thing in a fiery furnace, so much depended upon the outcome of the first venture. An hour later Mrs. Peck, returning from a neighbourly call upon Mrs. Fenton, surprised Brooke in the act of taking the four freshly baked loaves from their pans. They were done to a nicety of golden brown, and she laid each one down carefully and paused a moment, sniffing the appetizing odour before covering them with a clean towel, lest too sudden cooling should make the crust seam. “Tired, bean’t you!” ejaculated Mrs. Peck, whose principal comfort in the present was to lament and bewail a past of fabulous grandeur upon the like of which no living contemporary had ever set eyes. “I suppose you are thinking how little wunst you ever expected to hev to set to riz and knead and bake your own bread. Poor dear, I kin feel for you! I’ve been through it all—it’s turrible to feel yoursel’ downsot like I was after Mr. Peck died, and not through your own deserts!”