"Of course I can," explained Patience. "My in-vest-ments having turned out better than I hoped, we are finding this house almost too large for us, but should not like to change. I do not think that we could go back to the country now; we seem to want more life than we used to have, especially now after my re-tire-ment. I am afraid sometimes"--she raised her eyes again to the face of the girl, and then lowered them--"afraid sometimes that the life is almost too gay for Moira; but then she is young, and----" Her voice trailed off, and she finished the letter with a commonplace or two that she had dug out of the respectable past. Then she looked up again at the girl, half appealingly. "It ain't exactly what I wanted to say; 'tain't strong enough," she said. "Couldn't I write something underneath?" "Tear it up," suggested Moira, in a whisper. "Why should you write such things--when they'll know----" "The letter's going," exclaimed Patience sternly. She turned again to the page, and took up her pen; began to write, while she muttered the words aloud. "P.S.--I name no names; but there may be parties that have said things about me, and it is my wish to right myself in the eyes of all. Moira sits opposite me while I write"--she raised her eyes again for a moment, and lowered them quickly; perhaps she thought of the many, many nights on which the girl had sat there, with the lamp between them--"having no engagement for this evening outside." * * * * * She addressed the envelope hurriedly, as though afraid her resolution might fail. Moira, glancing across at the thing when it was finished, raised a protest. "It's no use sending it to Daisley Cross," she said; "they're in London." "I ain't going to waste an envelope," retorted Patience, after gazing at it for a moment a little blankly. "It'll find 'em." So it came about that the letter found its way to the breakfast table of the Baffalls at Daisley Cross, for they were down there, as it happened, by a sudden whim on the part of Alice. "Now I do hope nobody I know has died," murmured Mrs. Baffall, as she turned the black thing over and over. "No--I don't know the writing--but the postmark's London. Now, it couldn't be----No--it wouldn't be them; they were quite well a week ago; besides, the writing isn't the same. Now I come to look at it," added Mrs. Baffall, brightening, "it isn't unlike Janie Ford's writing; she has just those little twiggles at the ends of the words. And yet it isn't Janie."