"DEAR MR. CATCHPOLE,--I hope you will excuse the liberty I have taken in writing to you. I have left my place at the Terrace. I cannot help sending these few lines to say that Orkid Jim has been causing mischief here, and if he's had anything to do with your going he's a liar. It was all because I wouldn't go to the door and let him in, and gave missus a bit of my mind about him that I had notice. I wasn't sorry, however, for my cough is bad, and I couldn't stand running up and down those Terrace stairs. It was different at the shop. I thought I should just like to let you know that whatever missus and master may say, _I'm_ sure you have done nothing but what is quite straight. "Yours truly, "PHOEBE CROWHURST." Tom was grateful to Phoebe, and he put her letter in his pocket: it remained there for some time: it then came out with one or two other papers, was accidentally burnt with them, and was never answered. Day after day poor Phoebe watched the postman, but nothing came. She wondered if she had made any mistake in the address, but she had not the courage to write again. "He may be very much taken up," thought she, "but he might have sent me just a line;" and then she felt ashamed, and wished she had not written, and would have given the world to have her letter back again. She had been betrayed into a little tenderness which met with no response. She was only a housemaid, and yet when she said to herself that maybe she had been too forward, the blood came to her cheeks; beautifully, too beautifully white they were. Poor Phoebe! Tom met Mr. Cardew in Eastthorpe the evening after the interview with Catharine, and told him his story. "I am ruined," he said: "I have no character." "Wait a minute; come with me into the Bell where my horse is." They went into the coffee-room, and Mr. Cardew took a sheet of note-paper and wrote:-- "MY DEAR ROBERT,--The bearer of this note, Mr. Thomas Catchpole, is well known to me as a perfectly honest man, and he thoroughly understands his business. He is coming to London, and I hope you will consider it your duty to obtain remunerative employment for him. He has been wickedly accused of a crime of which he is as innocent as I am, and this is an additional reason why you should exert yourself on his behalf. "Your affectionate cousin, "THEOPHILUS CARDEW. "TO ROBERT BERDOE, Esq., "Clapham Common." Mr. Cardew married a Berdoe, it will be remembered, and this Robert Berdoe was a wealthy wholesale ironmonger, who carried on business in Southwark. "You had better leave Eastthorpe, Mr. Catchpole, and take your father with you. Are you in want of any money?" "No, sir, thank you; I have saved a little. I cannot speak very well, Mr. Cardew; you know I cannot; I cannot say to you what I ought."