My darling, I write in a light vein, I know, but my feeling is deep and earnest. I want to cheer you, if I can, and win a smile from you. Before we met in Leicester Square, on the day you were released, I was serious enough, and in deep trouble; but the moment we were together again, hope entered my heart, and, with that bright angel, a little of the gaiety of spirits in which you used to take delight. Hope is with me now. Receive it from me, if you are despondent. I kiss it into this letter, and send you my heart with it. No--how can I do that, when you have my heart already! And if, with that in your possession, you do not now and then see a ray of light in the midst of your anxieties, I shall call you ungrateful. Adieu, my love for a few hours. For ever and ever your own, BECKY. CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH BECKY WRITES A SECOND LETTER TO HER FRIEND IN THE COUNTRY, AND GIVES A WOMAN'S REASON FOR NOT LIKING RICHARD MANX. MY OWN DARLING,--It is nearly two o'clock in the morning. Everything is quiet in the house, and I can write in my little cupboard of a bedroom, the door of which leads into the kitchen, without fear of being disturbed. Where did I leave off in my letter? Oh, about our old lady lodger, Mrs. Bailey, and her poor old sister. She was the only lodger in the house when I first came, and I made myself so agreeable to the old lady that in a few days she would not be satisfied unless I waited upon her entirely. I heard her say to Mrs. Preedy, as I was in the passage outside the door--quite by accident, of course; I had my broom in my hand, you may be sure--I heard her say-- "Why didn't you send Becky up? I like Becky--I like Becky!" I have no doubt, if she had had a parrot in the room, that it would have learned to say-- "I like Becky!--I like Becky!" But I took no notice until Mrs. Preedy said to me-- "Becky, Mrs. Bailey's taken quite a fancy to you." "I'm glad to hear it, mum," I replied. You should hear me say "mum." I have made quite a study of the word. From that time I have waited upon Mrs. Bailey pretty regularly. Mrs. Preedy has not failed to impress upon me, if anything happens to the old lady, if she is "took ill" (she has an idea that the old lady will "go off sudden") while I am in her room, that I am to run down for her "immediate." "I should like to do what is proper by the old lady," said Mrs. Preedy. But my idea is that she wants to be the first to see what treasure is concealed in the old lady's mattrass. One day I ventured to speak to the old lady about the murder in No. 119, and I elicited from her that two detectives had paid her a visit, to ascertain whether she had heard anything from the next house on the night the dreadful deed was committed. "They didn't get anything out of me, Becky," said the old lady; "I didn't hear anything, Becky--eh? I told them as much as I heard--nothing--eh, Becky?"