Where to go was the next question. Her daughter Milisent, with her husband Robert Lewthwaite, would gladly have received her, and implored her to come to them; but nine children, a full house, and a small income, barred the way in that direction. No offer of a home came from Red Banks, where the children of her eldest daughter Anstace lived, and where the income was twice as large as at Mere Lea, while the family did not amount to half the number. Temperance Murthwaite trudged up to Selwick to offer the tiny house which was part of Lettice's little patrimony, actually proposing herself to go to service, and leave Lettice in her grandmother's care. This Faith regarded as a cruel injury, and Lady Louvaine would not hear of it. From her daughter-in-law. Mrs Walter Louvaine, at Kendal, came a sweetly-perfumed and sweetly-worded letter, wherein the writer offered-- a thousand apologies, and a dozen excuses for not receiving her dear and revered mother. Her grief in having so to write, she assured them, was incalculable and inconsolable. She begged that it might be taken into consideration that Diana was shortly to be married, and would require a trousseau--which, she did not add, comprised a pound of gold lace, and six pairs of silk stockings at two guineas the pair: that Montague, being in a nobleman's household, was an appalling expense to her; that the younger boys were growing up and would require situations found for them, while Jane and Frances would some day need portioning: all which facts were so many heavy burdens,--and had not the Apostle said that he who neglected to provide for his own was worse than an infidel? Lady Louvaine received this letter with a slight sigh, a gentle smile, and "Poor Frances!" But the usually calm, sunny temper of Edith was not proof against it. She tore the letter in two and flung the fragments into the fire. "Edith, my dear daughter!" ejaculated her astonished mother. "Mother, I can't stand it!" was the response. "I must either do this or something worse. And to drag in the Apostle Paul as a prop for such hypoc--I'll just go and churn, and perhaps I can talk like a Christian when I come back!"