It belonged to a lady artist, who, having to live abroad, wished to sell it; and it is now yours.

I tell you this so that mother need not be afraid that it is dirty.

It should reach you this week, and can stand in the old coach house until you are ready to set forth on the discovery of your native land.

I should have liked also to have added a horse and a man; but you must do that and keep an account of what everything costs, and let me know when I come back from abroad.

I shall expect some day a long account of your adventures, and if you keep a logbook, so much the better.
"I am, "Your true, if unsettling, friend, "X.
"P.S .-- You will find a use for the enclosed key sooner or later, and if you want to write to me, address the letter to 'X., care of Smithurst and Wynn, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.'" For a while after the letter was finished the Avories were too excited and thoughtful to speak, while as for the Rotherams and Horace Campbell, however they may have tried, they could not disguise an expression, if not exactly of envy, certainly of disappointment.