Dear Miss Winston! We found her, looking like the shadow of her former self, lying on such a hard old couch, in such a poor little room. Had I been an angel she could not have seemed more glad to see me. As I told her all about it she was so sweet. And when I gave her the twenty five-pound notes for which Mr Sanford had changed the cheque at Chichester, the way in which she thanked me did make me feel so strange. As if I had done anything to deserve her thanks. I never knew how happy it made one to be the bearer of good news until that day. As I came away I almost felt as if I had been in the presence of something sacred. On our way home Mr Sanford and I had a warm argument about old-age pensions, which nearly ended in a tiff. After we had been talking about them for more than half an hour he as good as said that he did not believe that I knew what an old age-pension was. Even if that was true--and it was, perfectly--I did not propose to allow him--almost a stranger--to accuse me of downright ignorance; as if I were an untutored savage. He might know something about everything; and anyone could see that he was awfully clever, while I might know nothing about anything,--which possibly was the case. Still, it was not civil for him to remark on it. The fact was, that he would persist in regarding me--I could see quite plainly what was in his mind--as if I were a mere child. Which, at sixteen, one emphatically is not. I do not hesitate to admit that I snubbed him in order to let him see that I resented his quite intolerable airs of superior wisdom. Which made it the more singular that he should have told me, as we were entering the drive, that he had to thank me for one of the pleasantest days he had spent in his life. Considering that I had been metaphorically sitting upon him for ever so long, I did not at all understand what he had to thank me for. When I got out my desk, to commence a letter to Hetty, my copy of Miss Winston's sentence was nowhere to be found. I could not think what had become of it. I distinctly remembered Mr Sanford taking it off the table, and making some uninvited comments on the writing--he seemed fond of criticising other people. But I did not recall what had happened to it afterwards. He could not have put it into his pocket by mistake. It seemed such a very odd thing for him to have done. And so excessively careless. V THE PEOPLE'S STOCK EXCHANGE