'SILVERBRIDGE,--December, 186-

'DEAREST LILY,
'I hardly know how to tell you what has
happened, it is so very terrible. But perhaps you
will have heard it already, as everybody is talking
about it here. It has got into the newspapers, and
therefore it cannot be kept secret. Not that I should
keep anything from you; only this is so very dreadful
that I hardly know how to write it. Somebody says--a
Mr Soames, I believe it is--that papa has taken some
money that does not belong to him, and he is to be
brought before the magistrates and tried. Of course
papa has done nothing wrong. I do think he would be
the last man in the world to take a penny that did not
belong to him. You know how poor he is; what a life
he has had! But I think he would almost sooner see
mamma starving;--I am sure he would rather be starved
himself, then even borrow a shilling which he could
not pay. To suppose that he would take money'

(she had tried to write the word 'steal' but she could not bring
her pen to form the letters)

'is monstrous. But, somehow, the circumstances have
been made to look bad against him, and they say that
he must come over here to the magistrates. I often
think that of all men in the world papa is the most
unfortunate. Everything seems to go against him, and
yet he is so good! Poor mamma has been over here, and