Whistling softly and unconsciously, Charley indulged in these highly agreeable reflections. His mother had not come downstairs at all. Alice had gone up to Daisy: Kate and Mademoiselle were reading French under the distant walnut-tree. Only Frank was there. "I do think I can smell haymaking!" cried Charley, suddenly. "Yes," assented Frank. "Some of the fields are down." "Is it not early for it?" "We have had an early season." No more was said. There flashed into Charley's mind a remembrance of the day he had first seen Eagles' Nest: when he had stood at one of the windows, though not this one, gazing out at the charming scenery, the lovely flowers; inhaling their perfume and that of the new-mown hay. Association of ideas is powerful, and probably that scent of the hay had brought the day to his memory now. Barely a twelvemonth had passed since then: and yet--how hopes and anticipations had changed! He had believed then that peace, ease, prosperity must inevitably attend them as the possessors of Eagles' Nest: he remembered picturing to himself the calamity it would have been had the beautiful place passed into others' hands. But he had lived to learn that care and worry could penetrate even there. "There's the postman!" cried Charley. And glad, probably, of the interruption, he went out, and crossed the lawn to meet the man. "Only one letter this morning," he exclaimed, coming back, his eyes fixed on it. "I say, Frank, what is to be done? It is from old Street, and he has put 'immediate' on it." "You had better open the letter yourself, I should say, Charles: my uncle cannot," said Frank, decisively. "I wonder what he has to write about: it is not often we hear from him. Nothing particular, I dare say: the good old father has not, I am sure, a secret in the world. Or--do you think," added Charley, his face lighting with eager hope, "that the money can have turned up? What a glorious thought! Yes, I will open it." He broke the seal of the letter. At that moment Lamb came in with fresh coffee. Frank, standing near the mantelpiece, watched the man put it down, and set two or three things in order on the table before going out again. As the door closed, Frank's glance chanced to stray to Charley's face. What was the matter with it? The eager flush of hope had been succeeded by a look of dismay: nay, almost of horror. The letter seemed very short. Charley was reading it twice over, growing paler the while. "Can it be a hoax?" he cried, in a voice scarcely raised above a whisper, as he held the letter out. "It cannot be true." Frank took the letter reluctantly. There was no help for it. But a spasm seized his own face, and a very terrible spasm seized his heart. When we are nourishing some great dread, any new and unexplained event seems to bear upon it. His fears had flown back to that dreadful night at Trennach. Had this letter come to betray him?