So it came about that the letter found its way to the breakfast table of the Baffalls at Daisley Cross, for they were down there, as it happened, by a sudden whim on the part of Alice.

"Now I do hope n.o.body I know has died," murmured Mrs. Baffall, as she turned the black thing over and over. "No--I don't know the writing--but the postmark's London. Now, it couldn't be----No--it wouldn't be them; they were quite well a week ago; besides, the writing isn't the same.

Now I come to look at it," added Mrs. Baffall, brightening, "it isn't unlike Janie Ford's writing; she has just those little twiggles at the ends of the words. And yet it isn't Janie."

It occurred to her at last that it might be well to open it, which she did, shaking her head as she did so, and murmuring suggestions as to who the writer might be. The letter open, she began to punctuate her reading of it with little soft "oh's" now and then, and an upraised hand. Mr.

Baffall complacently waited until she had turned the page, and had got to the end of the letter; then, as she laid it down and looked round at the two expectant faces, he smiled, and asked who it was had really written it.

"Well--you'll never guess," said Mrs. Baffall. "If anyone had come to me this morning, and had said to me--suddenly and without any warning--'Flora Baffall, you're going to have a letter with the name of Patience Roe at the end of it'--well, I don't know what I should have said to them. Ten to one I should have laughed."

"And what does Patience Roe want?" asked Mr. Baffall. "Not in any difficulty, I hope?"

"Moira didn't come to see me in London," said Alice. "At least--not after that once."

"Well, it's not surprising," said Mrs. Baffall, appealing to the letter, and seeming to shake her head over it. "According to what Patience says here, they never have time for anything--she speaks of Moira as being almost too gay."

Alice started, and looked round quickly with a frown. "What?" she exclaimed. "Gay? Well, she didn't look very gay when I saw her; surely you didn't think so Aunt Baffall? A poor washed-out, shabby thing----"

"Patience says something about investments having turned out better than she expected," murmured Mrs. Baffall. "Which is very pleasing, as Baffall himself would tell you, my dear--knowing something about it. If I didn't know Patience, I should almost think this was like a boasting letter--what we should call a bit of show-off. But it can't be that, of course."

When the meal was ended, and Alice had gone singing off to her own quarters, Baffall came round the table to his wife, and put a friendly hand on her shoulder. "May I see the letter, mother?" he asked.

She handed it to him, and he read it in silence; screwed up one eye over it, and tugged at his short beard, and rumpled his hair. Finally, tapping it with a stunted forefinger, he gave his verdict.

"When anybody writes like that--for no particular reason--it's either one or other of two things. Either they're what we'd call in business 'bluffing'--which means that the letter's got to be read the opposite way, in a manner of speaking--or else they're merely bragging for the sake of bragging."

"That isn't her way, I should think," broke in Mrs. Baffall quickly.

"I should think not," retorted her husband, "but you never can tell.

There's some reason for it, and it concerns that dark-eyed girl. I'm not much of a judge--but what did you think when you saw her in London, mother?"

"Well--without meaning to be unkind, Daniel, I did run an eye over her,"

said Mrs. Baffall; "and I must say she was poor as poor. Neat, mind you, as such a girl always would be--and more of a lady than half a hundred of 'em would be, no matter how much you spent on 'em; but poor--what I'd call make-shifty, if you'll understand."

Mr. Baffall nodded slowly. "I understand," he said; "therefore, it looks like bluff. Of course, the investments may have turned out much better; but you can't lead me to believe that that old woman would be the sort to make a splash about it, even if she came into a quarter of a million."

Mr. Baffall took a turn across the room, and touched the handle of the door to be certain that the door was closed. Then he came back to Mrs.

Baffall, and spoke in a lowered voice.

"How do you think it would be if Alice was to go----"

Mrs. Baffall shook her head vigorously; Mr. Baffall nodded slowly, with a perplexed face. "Perhaps you're right," he said slowly; "perhaps Alice isn't quite the sort. Not but what, being brought up as children, I should have thought----"

It was the turn of Mrs. Baffall to shake her head again. "It doesn't matter much how you bring 'em up, Daniel, or how you don't; it's what's in 'em to begin with. She's a nice girl, Daniel"--the old lady seemed to indicate the girl who had gone singing from the room--"but G.o.d didn't give her quite the sort of heart you an' me was looking for. Come and kiss you, she will, and her smile is beautiful to see; yet it leaves a longing somehow for something you never get."

"She always looks very nice--and is much admired," suggested Mr. Baffall simply.

"Which is something to be grateful for," replied Mrs. Baffall, brightening a little. "If only I could have understood the other one."

"I wouldn't worry about it," said Mr. Baffall, with a hand upon her shoulder. "I daresay the other one's happier as she is."

Nevertheless, Mr. Baffall was not altogether happy about the matter; he pondered over it with bent brows while he smoked his morning cigar round what he called the "estate." It ended, in fact, by his taking the cigar and the letter in the direction of the rectory, in the hope for temporal advice at least. There, without ceremony, he spread the letter before the Rev. Temple Purdue (grown a little greyer with the years, but otherwise unchanged) and indicated by a wave of the hand that it was to be read.

Mr. Purdue turned it over solemnly to find the signature; turned it back again to begin the reading of it. When he had finished he took off his spectacles, and laid them on his writing table, and looked up mildly at Mr. Baffall.

"Seems very satisfactory," he said. "Really, my dear Baffall, it is kind and thoughtful of you to have given me news of old friends like this--very kind indeed. I always had a great respect for Patience Roe--a very great respect indeed."

"That's one of the letters," said Mr. Baffall, leaning forward, and tapping it with a finger, "that wants reading between the lines. There is more in it than the mere words--and, according to Mrs. Baffall, it don't bear out what she thought when she saw the girl in London; nor, for the matter of that, does it bear out what I saw. Mr. Purdue, I've got a sneaking feeling that I should like to do something for that girl--young lady, I suppose you'd call her now; and I think that thought's in Mrs. Baffall's mind too."

Mr. Purdue looked at his visitor in some perplexity. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand," he said.

"Mr. Purdue, sir," went on Baffall solemnly, "when I was in business, if things went very wrong with me, and I didn't quite know where to turn for money or credit, what was the first thing I did?" Mr. Purdue shook his head. "Why, I made believe that I'd got more money than I knew what to do with, and was looking out for investments; or I suggested that business was so flourishing that I really couldn't entertain the idea of taking any more. That was my move--and that's the move in that letter.

For all we know, they may be in Queer Street, and yet much too proud to let anybody show 'em the way out."

"You distress me greatly," said Mr. Purdue, with a sigh. "What do you suggest should be done?"

Baffall shook his head. "Whatever's done must be done delicately," he said. "If me or Mrs. B., or Alice was to go--and Alice would want the carriage--I can understand their backs would be up--and their pride would stand in the way; I was always a bit afraid of that girl myself.

But if there was anybody in London--struggling a bit, perhaps, like themselves--it might be a help to the girl, for it seems to me that she must have a pretty slow time of it with that old woman."

The Rev. Temple Purdue sat silent for a few moments, thoughtfully biting the end of a pen. He looked up at last, and spoke almost apologetically.

"There's Charlie," he said.

There seemed to be some understanding between the two men as regarded Charlie; they looked at each other for a moment or two in silence; the rector sighed a little.

"Yes, there's Charlie," said Mr. Baffall, a little sternly. "Doing any better?"

"I have hopes of him," replied Purdue. "You see, he lost his mother when he was very young, Baffall; we must never forget that. And if he's wild and headstrong--well, that is one of the faults of youth, I suppose. You see--to go to London like that--plunge at once into a medical school--and live in lodgings----"

"I see what you're driving at," broke in Baffall. "You think that if he lived with anyone who would keep an eye on him----"

"I'm sure he'd do better," exclaimed the other eagerly. "I've thought of it often; but I have no time to go to London myself. He writes for money--and still more money; he sends promises of what he will do, and what he will undo; he's a good boy at heart."

"Patience Roe has rooms to spare in her house," said Daniel Baffall thoughtfully.

Such a little phrase to change a life--nay, to change lives! These two men, with their lives nearly spent, and with the road they had traversed stretching far behind them, sat innocently plotting what was to be done with younger lives that were in their keeping; and innocently they forged links that were to bind together those lives in a fashion they would never have suspected. Somewhere in that great London of which the one knew nothing, and which the other was glad to forget, Moira sat waiting for the beat of the many feet that were to come marching into her life; somewhere in that London Charlie lived his careless existence, with no thought of any morrow but a bright one. And these two men were pulling strings that should draw the two inevitably together.

"I'll write to her," exclaimed Purdue suddenly, "and I'll write to Charlie. He wants friends of a better sort in London; and if, as you suspect, they are poor, this may help them."

"I'm glad I came to you," said Baffall, as he got to his feet. "After all, that girl may help to keep the boy straight. Boys want a lot of keeping straight these days, it seems to me."

He had moved to the door when Mr. Purdue, going after him, detained him with a question. "No news of Jimmy?"

Mr. Baffall's brows contracted. "Not a word," he replied. "I'm disappointed in that boy; we both seem to have been a bit unlucky in that respect, Mr. Purdue. I got Jimmy into a good situation--provided for him, in a way; and he left it--or was turned out of it--for incompetence; and that's the last we've heard of him. It wants a strong boy or a strong man to hold his own in London."

The Rev. Temple Purdue sighed. "And Charlie is not strong--in that way,"

he said.

The Rev. Temple Purdue wrote two letters that evening in his study. The one was to astonish Patience Roe on the following day, and to cause her to regret that she had sent a letter to Daisley Cross at all. It suggested that Mr. Purdue was glad to hear of her continued prosperity; it mentioned incidentally that his son was in London, and would in all probability call upon them at an early date; concerning that particular item of news Patience said nothing to Moira.

The second letter was to Charlie; it was a letter written with some shakings of the head and many pauses for reflection. It addressed Charlie as "My dear boy," and it reminded him once again that his father was not a rich man, and that much money had already travelled Londonwards for Charlie's benefit. It contained some advice (which Charlie was afterwards to skim through hurriedly with a frowning face), and it mentioned the address of Patience Roe and Moira. More than that, it finished with the suggestion that Charlie might find it pleasant to visit them, and that he might perhaps care to make a change of lodging, and to take up his quarters with friends.