The letter in which Deleah, in her most careful handwriting and in formal language, set forth her prayer that for her mother's sake Sir Francis Forcus, who had already shown her family such generous kindness, should buy off her brother Bernard; he, having left Mr. George Boult's shop at Ingleby, and now enlisted in such and such a regiment--was addressed to that gentleman at his private residence, The Court, Cashelthorpe. He read the letter among others as he ate his breakfast, gave a shrug and a snort of impatience, and put it aside on a little heap of those which required answering. Before starting for town he singled it out from the rest and read it again. Then, standing up, the letter still in his hand, he gave vent to his feelings on the subject, for the enlightenment of his sister. "They've put that pretty child on to me again," he said. "This is from that little Day girl you fell in love with, last year, in the Assembly Rooms, Ada." He tossed the letter into her lap. "That sweetly pretty little thing at the concert?" She read the letter. "What shall you do?" she asked. "Decline." "Oh, Francis! Why?" "Because the boy is a ne'er-do-well. I have heard of him before. He is safest where he is." "She'll think it so unkind, poor child." "It can't be helped." "Would it cost much to buy him off?" "It isn't the money." "The principle?" "No. Nor yet, altogether, the principle." "It would be kind and good-natured to do what the poor little thing asks." "Yes. But for the sake of seeming good-natured I'm not going to be made a tool of." "You'll simply write back, then, that you won't do it?" She laughed a little, looking across at him as he stood up, tall and solemn and handsome, with his back to the fire. "To do that will cost you more than just enclosing the money." "That is not the question, Ada. I shall write, or"--he paused a minute, putting his lips together as his habit was when making up his mind to a course which did not altogether please him--"I'll go and see her," he finished. "That will be kinder," the sister said. To be kind was Ada Forcus's religion; it is possible she could not have professed a better one, or one more likely to benefit mankind. "They live at the shop, I suppose?" he asked. "Over the shop, poor things. I am so very sorry for that poor Mrs. Day." "You deal with her, don't you? You do what you can?" "I tell them to get _some_ things there every week." "And they do?" "You know how difficult servants are. Mrs. Twiss makes a grievance of it. They won't drink the tea in the kitchen; the currants are not so good. She always gets the matches there, and the blacking. Everything else Mrs. Twiss finds so much better at Wolsey's--" "And Wolsey, no doubt, gives her a percentage on her order. However--." Sir Francis fulfilled his intention of calling to see Deleah on the subject of her letter on the afternoon of that same day.