"Let me have your promise, dear girlie, and I shall feel more happy about you—although we are parted in body we can still commune in spirit, and I shall be most happy to supervise your reading, and to send you little suitable books from time to time. I have a sweet class at the Bainbridge, and our weekly meetings are very helpful. Always your friend and well-wisher, "BLANCHE STUKELY." Jane-Anne found this letter somewhat difficult to decipher, as Miss Stukely wrote a sloping, pointed hand, much more trying to read than that of Montagu or his guardian. So, in defiance of all her aunt’s rules, she invaded Mr. Wycherly in his study directly after breakfast, and asked him to read it aloud for her. He did so, and when he had finished she cast herself upon the ground despairingly, and burst into violent sobs. This tragic reception of what, to him, seemed a singularly ill-considered and narrow-minded letter, fairly flabbergasted Mr. Wycherly, and for a minute or two he sat at his table in perfect silence, holding Miss Stukely’s missive in his hand, irritably aware that it was written on scented note-paper, and that he abominated the odour. He looked down at the lithe, slender figure prone upon the floor in absolute abandonment of grief, and at last he asked: "Why do you cry, Jane-Anne?" Jane-Anne rolled over, sat up, and gasped out between her sobs: "Because she says he isn’t in heaven, and if he isn’t in heaven then he must be in hell for ever and ever, and I can never, never feel happy any more." "Get up, child, and sit upon a chair," Mr. Wycherly said sternly. He had an old-fashioned objection to scenes, and an indefinable feeling that to lie on the floor was neither decorous nor dignified, even for a little girl of twelve. Neither physical nor mental _déshabillé_ appealed to him. "Now tell me, why should you take it for granted that Lord Byron—is not in heaven?" A ray of light pierced the gloom of her outlook, and she stopped crying to ask eagerly: "Is Miss Stukely wrong, then; was he a good man after all?" "Even supposing he were not what is popularly considered a good man. Even so, what right has this Miss Stukely, or anybody else, to conclude that Lord Byron——" "Is in hell." Jane-Anne glibly finished the sentence. "Exactly," said Mr. Wycherly. "What right has she, I say, to assume anything of the kind?" "But the wicked do go there." "What about the thief on the cross?" asked Mr. Wycherly. "But he repented," she answered promptly. "And how do you, or Miss Stukely, or I, or anyone know that Lord Byron was unrepentant?" "Then you think it is all right?" she asked anxiously. "I am sure it is all right," Mr. Wycherly replied confidently. "Could you lend me your handkerchief, sir?" Jane-Anne asked. "I seem to have lost mine." Refreshed by the borrowed handkerchief, and much comforted in soul, she turned to another part of the letter, asking: