“We received your telegram, with your address, yesterday, and I need not say how thankful your father and I were to hear that you were safe and well, and that you had some settled place of abode, where a letter could be sent. We had begun to fear that with your usual impetuosity, you would be starting off on some long journey, and it would be weeks or months before there would be any means of communicating with you. “I know, where a young lady is concerned, it is almost always lost labour to attempt to reason with a young man, so it is with little hope of success that I make one more appeal to your common sense. “My dearest Frank, can you possibly imagine that you, unversed and inexperienced in such matters, can hope to meet with success where well-trained professional men have failed? Have not the science and ingenuity of first-class London detectives been exhausted in this search, and what can you hope to do? To my mind one of two things is certain; either Miss Warden met with some accident (to us unaccountable) and is long since dead; or else she has contracted some _mésalliance_, and is remaining voluntarily hidden from her friends. In either case, search for her, as far as you are concerned, is equally fruitless; for dead or living she could never be your wife. “My son, be reasonable, give up a task for which you are utterly unsuited, and which renders your father and myself equally miserable. We are ‘wearying’ for you, as your old Scotch tutor used to say, and the rectory seems very cheerless with my Frank’s chair so long unoccupied. “The sculling match will be coming off soon, and I hear that Benson is likely to be the favourite. What do you wish done about Sultana? I know you objected to Robert riding her, but she has grown far too frisky for your father to mount. Let us have a long letter as soon as you possibly can, and thankful, indeed, shall I be if it contains the welcome news that you will soon be amongst us again. “Ever, with much love, “Your affectionate mother, “GRACE VARLEY.” Then there followed a long postscript. “Do you remember your old playfellow, Mary Burton? I have her staying with me now (she came over from the Denver’s) and she has grown into one of the sweetest, handsomest girls, I have ever seen. She is just twenty-one, and has come into her mother’s large property at North-over-Fells. She is very anxious to know if you are at all like the Frank of old times, but I tell her a mother’s description of her only son cannot be a trustworthy one, so she must wait till she sees you, and judge for herself. Adieu.” “Dear mother!” said Frank, when he read her letter, “God bless her, she means kindly, and may say things to me no one else would dare to!” Then he wrote a short reply. “DEAREST MOTHER,— “Please not to expect me at the rectory until you see me. I have serious work on hand, which nothing but death or success will induce me to give up. Thanks for all your news.