Piles of yellow letters, files of dusty
accounts, multitudes of receipts, more than one old will had to be
conned it was possible to be certain they were not the nostrum. In
the utter solitude, even this occupation would have been valuable,
but with the little girls about her, and her own and their property,
she had alternative employments enough to make it an effort to apply
herself to this.
Why should she? she asked herself more than once; but then came the
recollection that if she showed herself willing to obey and gratify
my Lady, it might gain her good will, and if Sir Amyas should indeed
hold out till Mr. Wayland came home--Her heart beat wildly at the
vision of hope.
She worked principally at the letters, after the children had gone to
bed, taking a packet up stairs with her, and sitting in the bedroom,
deciphering them as best she might by the light of the candles that
Loveday had brought her.
Every morning Loveday appeared with supplies, and messages from her
Ladyship, that it was time Miss submitted; but she was not at all
substantially unkind, and showed increasing interest in her captive,
though always impressing on her that her obstinacy was all in vain.
My Lady was angered enough at his Honour having got up from his sick
bed and gone off to Carminster, and if Miss did not wish to bring her
father into trouble she must yield.
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