'Evelina' and 'Persuasion.' How did you get on at Blachington? and
which of the Misses Merrifield went in the end? Don't bother about
the commissions. Any time will do.
"Ever yours,
"Derrick Vaughan."

Poor old fellow! all the spirit seemed knocked out of him. There
was not one word about the Major, and who could say what
wretchedness was veiled in that curt phrase, "we are settled in all
right"? All right! it was all as wrong as it could be! My blood
began to boil at the thought of Derrick, with his great powers--his
wonderful gift--cooped up in a place where the study of life was so
limited and so dull. Then there was his hunger for news of Freda,
and his silence as to what had kept him away from Blachington, and
about all a sort of proud humility which prevented him from saying
much that I should have expected him to say under the circumstances.

It was Saturday, and my time was my own. I went out, got his book
for him; interviewed North Audley Street; spent a bad five minutes
in company with that villain 'Bradshaw,' who is responsible for so
much of the brain and eye disease of the nineteenth century, and
finally left Paddington in the Flying Dutchman, which landed me at
Bath early in the afternoon. I left my portmanteau at the station,
and walked through the city till I reached Gay Street. Like most of
the streets of Bath, it was broad, and had on either hand dull,
well-built, dark grey, eminently respectable, unutterably dreary-
looking houses. I rang, and the door was opened to me by a most
quaint old woman, evidently the landlady. An odour of curry
pervaded the passage, and became more oppressive as the door of the
sitting-room was opened, and I was ushered in upon the Major and his