CHAPTER V.CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE.
On the Saturday of his appointment Redworth arrived at Copsley, with a shade deeper of the calculating look under his thick brows, habitual to him latterly.

He found Lady Dunstane at her desk, pen in hand, the paper untouched; and there was an appearance of trouble about her somewhat resembling his own, as he would have observed, had he been open-minded enough to notice anything, except that she was writing a letter.

He begged her to continue it; he proposed to read a book till she was at leisure.
'I have to write, and scarcely know how,' said she, clearing her face to make the guest at home, and taking a chair by the fire, 'I would rather chat for half an hour.' She spoke of the weather, frosty, but tonic; bad for the last days of hunting, good for the farmer and the country, let us hope.
Redworth nodded assent.

It might be surmised that he was brooding over those railways, in which he had embarked his fortune.

Ah! those railways! She was not long coming to the wailful exclamation upon them, both to express her personal sorrow at the disfigurement of our dear England, and lead to a little, modest, offering of a woman's counsel to the rash adventurer; for thus could she serviceably put aside her perplexity awhile.