This was the last letter we had from home touching this strange matter--excepting a letter from the Marquis's secretary stating that his lordship had not as yet been called on to honour any draft of Mr. Bampfyld's, which he would very willingly do. Yet of the matter itself there was now to be more trouble, ay! more dreadful, horrid trouble than had happened up to now. This you shall see later. Meanwhile, our life went on very peacefully at the Manor, and, when I had reconciled myself to my dear father's loss, was not an unhappy one. Mary remained with me ever as my friend and companion, helping me to direct the household duties, singing and playing with me upon the spinet and the harpsichord, riding with me sometimes to Richmond, or Norfolk, or Williamsburg, sometimes called Middle Plantation, and assisting me in my garden, for which she constantly obtained from her friends in Bristol many of the dear old English plants and seeds. Yet I feared that the day must come ere long when she would cease to be an inmate of my house, tho' still a neighbour. For it was very evident that she had formed an affection, which was warmly returned, for the young Irish clergyman whom our neighbour, Mr. Cliborne, had brought out from England on his return from his last visit there, to replace the dissolute old man who had been Mr. St. Amande's friend and brother carouser. This young divine was a very different kind of man from that other, being most attentive in his duties and expounding the Word--according to the forms of the Established Church--most beautifully, and was, withal, a cheerful companion. He could also write sweet verses--whereby he partly gained, I think, Mary's heart--and he could take part in a catch or a glee admirably, so that, when in the evening we all sang together in the saloon, the blacks would gather round outside to hear and, sometimes, to hum in concert with us. To add to which his learning was profound. But what interested me more than all was that Mr. Jonathan Kinchella--such being his name--was able to throw a thoroughly clear light upon the whole of the transactions connected with the St. Amande family; he could explain all that you, yourselves, know as to how the scapegrace, Roderick, came out to Virginia, and he told us of all the sufferings of that poor young man whom he always spoke of as Gerald, so that we could not but weep at their recountal. For what woman's heart, nay, what human heart, would not be touched by the description of that poor child torn from his mother's arms, living the life of a beggar in rags, and witnessing the funeral of his father conducted by charity? Oh! it was pitiful, we said to one another, pitiful; and when we knelt down to pray at night we besought a blessing on Mr. Kinchella and on that other good Christian, Quin, the butcher, for all that they had done for that unhappy young outcast.