Helen and Miss Ferrars were not long in acting on this hint, and found Alice sitting in the window-sill in the moonlight, leisurely unplaiting her long, golden-brown plaits. She received them with smiles and tears. “I knew you would come,” she said, throwing herself into Helen’s arms; “you have always been our good genius. You have heard it all from him, have you not?” she whispered. “Only a sketch--a mere outline,” Helen replied, seating herself. “I have a vague idea that you are going abroad, that I am to have charge of Maurice, and that we are all to meet at Looton at Christmas. The moment I saw Regy’s face I knew what had happened. Dear boy! it does one good to see him looking like himself once more.” The three ladies remained talking together till the small hours, much to the detriment of Alice and Mary’s roses, and the tale of the lost letter was told and re-told, deplored and discussed, at least ten times over. The next morning Reginald started for Looton, and within a week Sir R. and Lady Fairfax were among the fashionable departures for the Continent, and the party at Monkswood dispersed, to reunite at Christmas. CHAPTER IX. ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. It is the end of the first week in January--bleak, black January! Outside Looton the snow is falling lightly but persistently; already it is a foot deep in the park. It is a bitterly cold, dreary, dark evening. Not a single living creature is abroad that can possibly find shelter. What a night for the homeless--what a night for the miserable starving birds! Inside Looton the prospect is much more cheerful. A huge log fire is roaring up the chimney of the great hall, lighting up the frames of dingy-looking portraits, reflecting itself in more than one dinted steel cuirass and battered casque, and generally illuminating the arms and armour of many a dead and gone Fairfax. A large mastiff lies luxuriously at full length on a tiger-skin before the fire; but of other living inmates the room is empty. The letter-box stands on the table; no one is looking--let us have a peep. Here is an epistle from Mrs. Mayhew to Miss Saville, which will doubtless tell us all the family news. “Looton, _Jan. 5th_. “MY DEAR MISS SAVILLE, “I am quite ashamed of myself for never having answered your kind New Year’s letter. But you have _no_ idea what a whirl we have been living in since Christmas. I never seem to have a moment to myself. “Nearly all the party have gone out skating to-day--an amusement not at all in _my_ line--so at last I have an hour to devote to my many indignant correspondents. “You have heard from Alice frequently, of course, and I am sure she has told you how much we have missed you, and how disappointed she and Regy have been at your absence. It is really too bad of your old enemy, rheumatism, to seize on you just at this time.