"I am still without any news of you, although this is the third letter I have written since I received your last. I know that you must have been very much and very specially engaged. I know, as you will have gathered from my last hasty few lines, that poor Tom Creswell is dead, and I feel that you must have been called upon to your utmost to play the part of comforter, and to bring your keen sympathies and busy brains into active use to restore something like a semblance of ordinary comfort to that disordered and desolate household. That you are the mainstay of the family in their trouble, as of course few would be, I happen to know. Did I tell you how? Mr. Gould, who is Lord Hetherington's principal business agent, showed me a letter he had had from you, written in Mr. Creswell's behalf, about the impossibility of the poor old gentleman's carrying out some sale of land, about which he had been previously negotiating, under the existing melancholy circumstances. It seemed so strange to see the handwriting, so familiar, and so dear to me, addressed to another; treating of business topics, and yet conveying information, which was surely interesting to me, but of which I was yet ignorant. However, you had your duty to do to the people who had been so kind to you, and who had done much more than their duty by you during the time of your trials, and I, who know you so well, have no doubt that you have done it, not merely in the letter but in the spirit. "I suppose that by this time the first shock of grief will have passed away, and that the household at Woolgreaves will be assuming something like its normal state, and I presume, therefore, that you and Mrs. Ashurst will be soon thinking of bringing your visit to an end, even if by this time you have not already entered upon the lodgings which you told me you had in view. I have no doubt that if this be so now, or whenever it comes, both you and Mrs. Ashurst will much miss the material comfort which you have enjoyed during the last few months. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, but you, at all events, have long had a clear idea of your future, and so long as you are with her I do not fear Mrs. Ashurst's becoming a prey to despair. The woman who battled so bravely by your dear father's side is not likely to give way now that the heat of the contest is over, and a retreat, humble indeed, but sufficient for existence, is provided for her. I should almost rather fear the effect of the change upon you. I should very much fear it if I laid much stress upon the opinions with which the last letter I received from you was rife, opinions breathing the very essence of worldly philosophy, but scarcely such as one would expect to find in a young girl's letter to her lover. However, I do not lay much stress on these opinions; I know that it is the fashion just now to affect a cynicism which is not really felt, and to ascribe to one's self faults and follies which have no substantial basis.