"MY DEAREST BOY--Your dear letter and the news of your arrival brought the greatest pleasure I have known for many a long day, though it came in the midst of great trouble, my dear Mr. Stenhouse having been buried just a few days before; a very great affliction, which I trust, for _all your sakes_, my dear boy, yours and little Edmund's, and your dear sisters', I shall have strength to bear. Little Edmund interrupts me to say--and I must give you the _very_ words of his message, or he will not be pleased--that, please, you're to come home directly, and that his papa has left him a great deal of money, and he means to give you half of it, and wants so very, very much to see his brother Roger. My own boy, I must ask you to be very good to dear little Edmund; he has been such an invalid, the dear child, that everybody has always yielded to him all his life, and he does love _you_ so! Since ever he could speak he has kept on entreating me to tell him of his brother Roger, and he thinks there is not such another in the world; and he is very good, the dear little fellow, when he is not in pain, and one takes a little care and knows his way. However, I have something to tell you besides. The day before yesterday along with your letter there came a letter to my dear Mr. Stenhouse, which Edmund opened before I saw what he was doing. Edmund tells me to say that he does so hope you will come soon to see the cricketing in Leasough Park; and he thinks if you would join the Leasough eleven--Leasough is a village two miles off, where we always go for our drive, and where everybody knows Edmund--they would be sure to win. But about Mr. Pouncet's letter, my dear son. It seemed written in a great fright, saying that Sir John Armitage had written to him something about you, and what _should_ he do?--and speaking in a very improper manner, actually _cursing_ the day he did something, which it seems my dear Mr. Stenhouse must have known of, and asking that young Mr. Scarsdale, Colonel Sutherland's nephew, who seemed to know about it too, might be sent to Kenlisle at once. Edmund said, 'Mamma, send for Mr. Scarsdale directly' (he is _so_ clever, the dear child), and so I did. But I must first go back to tell you that my dear Mr. Stenhouse himself had sent for young Mr. Scarsdale, and spoke with him in private, and charged him, as I heard with my own ears--dear Julius being taken very bad, and not knowing what he said--that 'the boy was not to know'--just the day before his death. When Mr. Scarsdale came, I am sorry to say he was not so polite as I should have expected from Colonel Sutherland's nephew, and would not tell either Edmund or me anything, but rather sneered at my poor child, and went off all in haste, keeping the letter in his hand. I should have sent it to you if he had not taken it away. Now, I do not know what this may mean--nor can it be expected that Edmund should, as he is only a child; but both he and I, my dear