"This comes hoping it may find you well, as it still leaves me, though very deaf. I have got a bit of news for you, which I know you will be glad to hear. I was going down the Wash yesterday, when who should I meet but Will Laud? He looked uncommon well, and was very civil to me. He asked me many questions about you; and I set him right about some bad splints and curbs he had got in his head. He told me he should soon manage to see you, so no more from old "George Teager. "Margaret's Green, May 3rd, 1797." Imagine poor Margaret's anxiety. She waited seven days in such a state of feverish suspense as only those so situated can feel. She rested neither day nor night, but became each morning more anxiously disturbed, until she determined to go herself to Ipswich. Now Laud had been to Ipswich to purchase some timber, and to dispose of some of his smuggled goods. He had met old Teager, the coachman, and had treated him with a friendly glass, which the old man seldom refused. He had also met an old messmate accidentally; a good-for-nothing fellow, whom Luff had formerly made use of to deceive Margaret with false reports concerning him. Laud had treated this man to some grog; and in talking over old times, the man disclosed some of Luff's villainy, with which Laud had never before been acquainted; especially his conduct to Margaret on that wretched night in which Laud had sought an interview with her. This fellow, whose name was John Cook, told him that he was one of the sailors bribed to deceive her, and to go backwards and forwards with false reports to the kitchen of St. Margaret's Green. Laud now saw the reason for poor Margaret's exclamation, "I will have nothing more to do with any sailors!" The truth broke on him with such conviction, that he resolved to seek out his betrothed the very moment he had fulfilled his engagement at Ipswich. It is a remarkable fact, that, on the very same day on which Laud left the town with the full determination to see and have an explanation with Margaret, she determined to go to Ipswich, to explain (if she could find him) the whole of her conduct. This was on the evening of the 9th of May, 1797. She had frankly explained to her uncle the purpose of her journey; and as to the money in the hands of the trustee, she said, "If a letter comes to you, from me, about it, you can then consult with Mr. Smith about its disposal. I fully expect," she added, "to meet Laud at Ipswich, and whatever his fortunes may be, I am determined to share them with him."