Lucy was interrupted by the sound of her father’s heavy step approaching the room. He threw the door open and came in hastily. He, too, had a letter in his hand, and held it out to his wife as he came forward. “He has written at last,” he said. “It is a fine thing to have waited so long for. Look, Elizabeth, if you can read it, what your boy says.” Lady Curtis took the letter, looking anxiously at her husband’s face to read its effect. And then Lucy and she read it as they had read the other, the girl over her mother’s shoulder. The very sight of Arthur’s handwriting moved them. He had written a few words to Lucy to thank her for the money and the blessing conveyed to him on his wedding day; but except these few warm words they had not heard from him since that painful violent letter which Lady Curtis had received after the visit of Mr. Rolt, the family lawyer, to Underhayes. And that had given the ladies so much pain that the very sight of the dear and familiar handwriting brought it back. Sir John went to the fire as was his way, and set himself up against the mantel-piece, turning towards them the dullness of his long melancholy countenance, which showed little change of expression one way or another. His heavy repose, not unclouded with trouble, contrasted sharply with the eager and anxious looks of his wife and daughter already disturbed and excited. They read, breathless with anxiety and haste, flying over the paper, taking in its meaning almost at a glance in a way which was wonderful to him. He shook his head slightly as he saw this rapid process; it was impossible they could understand it, he said to himself; even Arthur’s letter! skimmed over with feminine want of thoroughness in anything, as if it had been a book. Arthur’s letter, so far as external forms went, was dutiful enough. “My dear father,