"I’m afraid this won’t do." "I thought it didn’t seem quite right, Miss," said Susan meekly. "More especially the piece about the coach. That was why I didn’t post it." "Susan, don’t prevaricate," I said sternly. "It isn’t like you, and I won’t put up with it. If I am to have any more to do with this affair, you must really begin to treat me with perfect candour. Why did you tell me you had never seen Lord Ruddington?" "If you please, Miss, I never _have_ seen him." "Never?" "Not that I know of. I’ve seen----" Susan paused and blushed. "Go on, go on," I said impatiently. "You have seen--whom?" "Please, Miss, there was a young gentleman in a dark green suit when we were at the post-office on Saturday. He stared at me as we went in; and when we came out he followed us as far as the Golden Eagle, looking at me all the time." "It was very wrong of you to encourage him, Susan. But how do you know it was Lord Ruddington?" "I don’t, Miss. Maybe it’s only my fancy." "Susan, look here. Look at your own letter. Goodness knows where you got all this grand old-fashioned language from. It’s the sort of language they used when Lord Ruddington’s great-grandmother wasn’t a day older than you are now. But that isn’t my point. What I want to know is why you write to Lord Ruddington in this letter about ’occasions’ when you have met?" "I know it sounds wrong, Miss," replied Susan, more humbly than ever. "But that was just the way it was in the book. Those were the very words." "The book?" I echoed, bewildered. "Yes, Miss. I copied it out of the old book that’s been lying in the lumber-room ever since I came to Traxelby. Perhaps you haven’t seen it, Miss?" Light was breaking over me, but I couldn’t make out the full truth till Susan went on: "The back is torn off, Miss. It has a picture of a young lady in a short-waisted muslin frock looking very sad and writing at a table. There’s a wicked little boy in the corner of the room with nothing on but wings, and a and arrow, just going to shoot the young lady. The book’s called The Complete Letter-Writer." It took all my self-control and all my solicitude for poor worried Susan to restrain me from laughing loud and long. But, after the first shock of comicality, I was soon steadied again by the hard facts which still rose up before me. At another time this clearing up of the mystery of Susan’s Late Georgian grammar and Johnsonian vocabulary would have been droll past resistance. But Lord Ruddington’s letter was lying on the table.