simmering pot of Emerald broth.' Oh ye hussy! I'd say, if ye weren't a
borrn lady. And signs ut all, 'Your faithful Charlotte.' Mr. Wilfrud,
I'd give five pounds for this letter if I didn't know ye wouldn't part
with it under fifty. And 'deed I am a simmerin' pot; for she'll be a
relation, my dear! Go to 'r. I'll have your bed ready for ye here at
the end of an hour; and to-morrrow perhaps, if Lady Charlotte can spare
me, I'll condescend to see Ad'la."

Wilfrid fanned her cheek with the note, and then dropped it on her neck
and left the room. He was soon hurrying on his way to the Dolphin:
midway he stopped. "There may be a bad shot in Bella's letter," he
thought. Shop-lights were ahead: a very luminous chemist sent a green
ray into the darkness. Wilfrid fixed himself under it. "Confoundedly
appropriate for a man reading that his wife has run away from him!" he
muttered, and hard quickly plunged into matter quite as absorbing. When
he had finished it he shivered. Thus it ran:

"My beloved brother,

"I bring myself to plain words. Happy those who can trifle with human
language! Papa has at last taken us into his confidence. He has not
spoken distinctly; he did us the credit to see that it was not necessary.
If in our abyss of grief we loss delicacy, what is left?--what!

"The step he desired to take, Which We Opposed, he has anticipated, And
Must Consummate.

"Oh, Wilfrid! you see it, do you not? You comprehend me I am surf! I
should have said 'had anticipated.' How to convey to you! (but it would
be unjust to him--to ourselves--were I to say emphatically what I have