"Oh, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Clara, laughing, "I shan't be able to breathe with all that on me." "Look at Mary and Emmeline," said he; "they have got twice as much. You don't know how cold it is." "You had better have the fur close to your body," said Aunt Letty; "look here;" and she showed that her gloves were lined with fur, and her boots, and that she had gotten some nondescript furry article of attire stuck in underneath the body of her dress. "But you must let me have them a little looser, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Clara; "there, that will do," and then they all got upon the car and started. Herbert was perhaps two minutes after them before he mounted; but when he left the hall the man was still sitting there; for the servant had not yet come back from his father's room. But the clatter of his horse's hoofs was still distinct enough at the hall door when the servant did come back, and in a serious tone desired the stranger to follow him. "Sir Thomas will see you," said the servant, putting some stress on the word will. "Oh, I did not doubt that the least in the world," said Mr. Mollett, as he followed the man along the passage. The morning was very cold. There had been rainy weather, but it now appeared to be a settled frost. The roads were rough and hard, and the man who was driving them said a word now and again to his young master as to the expediency of getting frost nails put into the horse's shoes. "I'd better go gently, Mr. Herbert; it may be he might come down at some of these pitches." So they did go gently, and at last arrived safely at Berryhill. And very busy they were there all day. The inspection of the site for the mill was not their only employment. Here also was an establishment for distributing food, and a crowd of poor half-fed wretches were there to meet them. Not that at that time things were so bad as they became afterwards. Men were not dying on the road-side, nor as yet had the apathy of want produced its terrible cure for the agony of hunger. The time had not yet come when the famished living skeletons might be seen to reject the food which could no longer serve to prolong their lives.