"I'm torn to pieces with indecision and uncertainty," she began, taking a letter from a drawer. "I begin to think now it might have been better had I adhered to my first thought--that of taking pupils. Only look at the thing I have missed!" He held out his hand for the letter, which she struck as she spoke. In her dictatorial manner she preferred to read it to him, and waved his hand away. "The Red Court Farm, Coastdown. "MADAM, "I have been advised to write to you by my friends here, Captain and Mrs. Copp. They think you are making arrangements to receive half-a-dozen first-class pupils to educate with your own daughter. I am in search of something of the sort for my daughter, Miss Thornycroft, and it is possible that your house may be found suitable. She will require the best advantages, for which I shall expect to pay accordingly. "With your permission I will drive over one of these first days and see you. "And I am, madam, "Your obedient servant, "HARRY THORNYCROFT. "Mrs. Chester." "Who is Harry Thornycroft?" were Mr. Lake's first words when her voice ceased. "I should have been as much at fault to know as you, but for a note Anna has had from Mr. Copp, giving a little explanation. Mr. Thornycroft is the great man of Coastdown, it seems; a county magistrate, very influential, and very rich. Mrs. Copp thinks he would pay quite two hundred a year with his daughter." "And Mrs. Copp--who is she?" repeated Mr. Lake. "And where in the name of geography is Coastdown?" "We shall never get on if you bother like this," returned Mrs. Chester, irascibly. "Mrs. Copp and Anna's mother were related, and Coastdown is a little place on the sea, about two-and-twenty miles from here. Only fancy--only _think_--two hundred a year with the first pupil! If I only got three others at the same terms there'd be eight hundred a year at once--a thousand with my own income. It would be quite delightful." "But that's reckoning your chickens before they are hatched." "I might have known that you'd throw some mocking slight upon it," was the angry retort. "No mocking slight at all, Penelope. I do not mean it as such. Of course, if you could get four or six pupils at two hundred a year each, it would be a jolly good thing. Only--I fancy pupils on those terms are not so readily picked up." "_One_, at any rate, seems ready to drop into my hands. Should Miss Thornycroft not be placed with me after this, I shall look upon life as very hard." "Can't you take her, should they offer her to you, and trust to good luck for finding others?" "Then what am I to do about Lady Ellis?" "Keep her also, if she will stay." "But she would not. I sounded her this morning. Not as if I had a personal interest in the question. Anything like a school was her especial abhorrence, she said. She'd not enter a house where teaching was carried on for the world."