“Perhaps,” he said, in his most fatherly tone, for it seemed to the man in this crisis of his life that even little Betty’s support was something to hold by, “my dear child, your instinct is right. Go to Miss Lance and tell her how things are. Don’t take this odious letter, however,” he said, seizing Bee’s note and tearing it across with indignant vehemence, “with all its prejudices and assumptions. Tell her in your own words; and where they are--and---- Where are they, by the way?” he said, groping for the fragments of the letter in his waste-paper basket. “I hope you noted the address.” He had not then, it was evident, noted the address, nor the name of Mrs. Leigh, nor in whose house Charlie was. Betty’s heart beat high with the question whether she should call his attention to these additional facts, but her courage failed her. He had cooled down, he was himself again: and after a moment he added, “I will write a little note which you can take,” with once more the smile that Betty thought silly floating across his face. She was standing close by the writing-table, and Betty was not aware that there was any harm in the natural glimpse which her keen eyes took, before she was conscious of it, of the note he was writing. It was not like a common note. It did not begin “Dear Miss Lance,” as would have been natural. In short, it had no beginning at all, nor any signature--or rather it was signed only with his initial “F.” How very extraordinary that papa should sign “F.” and should not put any beginning to his letter. A kind of wondering consternation enveloped the little girl. But still she did not in the least understand what it meant. Betty walked away along Pall Mall and Piccadilly, and by the edge of the Park to George Street, Hanover Square. It is not according to the present fashion that a girl should shrink from walking along through those busy London streets, where nobody is in search of adventures, at least at that hour of the morning. Her white morning frock and her black ribbons, and her early bloom, like the morning, though delightful to behold, did not make all the passers by stand and stare as the movements of a pretty girl used to do, if we are to credit the novels, in the beginning of the century. People, perhaps, have too much to do nowadays to give to that not unusual sight the attention which the dandies and the macaroni bestowed upon it, and Betty was so evidently bent on her own little business, whatever it was, that nothing naturally occurred to detain her.