As they stood, her hand in his, her flushed face downcast, Mrs. North's open carriage rolled past. Madam's head was suddenly propelled towards them as far as safety permitted: her eyes glared: a stony horror sat on her countenance. "Shameful! Disgraceful!" hissed madam. And Miss Matilda North, by her side, started up to see what the shame might be. Arthur Bohun had caught the words--not Ellen--and bit his lips in a complication of feeling. But all he did was to raise his hat--first to his mother, then to Ellen--as he went out at the gate. Madam flung herself back in her seat, and the carriage pursued its course up the Ham. CHAPTER IV. THREE LETTERS FOR DR. RANE. "You are keeping quality hours, Bessy--as our nurse used to say when we were children," was Richard North's salutation to his sister as he went in and saw the table laid for breakfast. Mrs. Rane laughed. She was busy at work, sewing some buttons on a white waistcoat of her husband's. "Oliver was called out at seven this morning, and has not come back yet," she explained. "And you are waiting breakfast for him! You must be starving." "I took some coffee when Molly had hers. How is papa, Richard?" "Anything but well. Very much worried, for one thing." "Madam and Matilda are back again, I hear?" continued Bessy. "Three days ago. They have brought Miss Field with them." "And madam has brought her usual temper, I suppose," added Bessy. "No wonder papa is suffering." "That of course; it will never be otherwise. But he is troubling himself also very much about the works being stopped. I tell him to leave all such trouble to me, but it is of no use." "When will the strike end, Richard?" Richard shook his head. It was an unprofitable theme, and he did not wish to pursue it with Bessy. She had sufficient cares of her own, as he suspected, without adding to them. Three letters lay on the table, close to where Richard was sitting; they were addressed to Dr. Rane. His fingers began turning them about mechanically, quite in abstraction. "I know the handwriting of two of them," remarked Bessy, possibly fancying he was curious on the point; "not of the third." "The one is from America," observed Richard, looking at the letters for the first time. "Yes; it's from Dr. Jones. He would like Oliver to join him in America." "To join him for what?" asked Richard. Bessy looked at him. She saw no reason why her brother should not be told. Dr. Rane wished it kept secret from the world; but this, she thought, could not apply to her good and trustworthy Richard. She opened her heart and told him all; not what they were going certainly to do, for ways and means were still doubtful, but what they hoped to be able to do. Richard, excessively surprised, listened in silence.