"I have been going to write for the last few days, but have been so busy. I could go on the picnic to-day if it would suit you I'll call at the studio at one o'clock. If you can't come, send me a wire. Oh, I forgot to say Mr Hancock came home the other day with me and had a long talk with father, and Mr Bevan called to-day and was awfully jolly, and I'll tell you all about it when we meet. Give my love to Mr Verneede. "In haste to catch the post. "_P.S._--I'm in such good spirits. F. L." It was the morning after the day on which Mr Bevan had called at "The Laurels." Leavesley was in bed, and reading the above, which had come by the early post, and which Belinda had thrust under his door, together with a circular and a bill for colours. "Hurrah!" cried Mr Leavesley, and then "Great Heavens!" He jumped out of bed, and rummaged wildly in his pockets. He found seven and sixpence in silver, and a penny and a halfpenny in coppers, a stump of pencil, a tramway ticket with a hole punched in it, and a Woodbine cigarette packet containing one cigarette. He placed the money on the wash-hand-stand, then he sat for a moment on the side of his bed disconsolate. The most beautiful day that ever dawned, the most beautiful girl in the world, a chance of taking her up the river, and seven and six to do it on! He curled his toes about. Yesterday, in a fit of righteousness, he had paid a tailor two pounds ten on account. He contemplated this great mistake gloomily. Wild ideas of calling on Mark Moses & Sonenshine and asking for the two pounds ten back crossed his mind, to be instantly dispelled. The only two men in London who could possibly help him with a loan were, to use a Boyle-Rochism, in Paris. Mrs Tugwell, his landlady, was at Margate, and he was in the middle of his tri-monthly squabble with his uncle. He called up the ghost of his aunt Patience Hancock, and communed with her just for the sake of self-torture, and the contemplation of the hopeless. Then he rang his bell, which Belinda answered. "Breakfast at once, Belinda." "Yessir, and here's another letter as hes just come," she poked a square envelope under the door. Leavesley seized it with a palpitating heart; it was unstamped, and had evidently been left in by hand. "This is the God from the Machine," he thought. "There's money in it, I know. It always happens like this when things are at their worst." We all have these instincts at times: the contents of an unopened letter or parcel seem endowed with a voice; who has not guessed the fateful news in a telegram before he has broken open the envelope, even as Leavesley guessed the contents of the letter in his hand? He tore it open and took out a sheet of paper and a pawnbroker's duplicate. The letter ran:-- "NO. 150A KING'S ROAD, "OVER THE BACON SHOP.