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the taxes. Next week Miss Toller had the following letter from her

father
'MY DEAR MARY,--This is to tell you that your stepmother departed
this life last Tuesday fortnight. She was taken with a fit on the Sunday.
On Tuesday morning she came to herself and wished us to send for the
parson. He was here in an hour and she made her peace with God. I did
not ask you to the funeral as you had been so long away. My dear Mary,
I cannot live alone at my age. I was sixty- five last Michaelmas, and I
want you back in the old house. Let bygones be bygones. I shall always
be, your affectionate father,
'THOMAS TOLLER.
'PS.--You can have the same bedroom you had when your own mother
was alive.'
The furniture, modern stuff, was sold, every stick of it, and Miss Toller
rejoiced when the spring sofa and chairs which had been devoted to
Poulters and Goachers and Taggarts were piled up in the vans. The
nightmares of fifteen years hid themselves in the mats and carpets.
Helen and she standing at the dresser ate their last meal in the dingy
kitchen of Russell House. It was nothing but sandwiches, but it was the
most delicious food they had tasted there. It is a mistake if you are old
to go back to the village in which you were born and bred. Ghosts meet
you in every lane and look out from the windows. There are new names
on the signboard of the inn and over the grocer's shop. A steam-engine
has been put in the mill, and the pathway behind to the mill dam and to
the river bank has been closed. The people you see think you are a
visitor. The church is restored, and there is a brand new Wesleyan
chapel. Better stay where you are and amuse yourself by trying to make
flowers grow in your little, smoky, suburban back-garden. But Miss
Toller and Helen were not too old. Mr. Toller met them at the station
with a four- wheeled chaise. Before the train had quite stopped, Helen
caught sight of somebody standing by the cart which was brought for
the luggage. 'It's Tom! it's Tom!' she screamed; and it was Tom himself,
white-headed now and a little bent. She insisted on walking with him
by the side of his horse the whole four miles to their journey's end. He

was between forty and fifty when she went away and had been with Mr.
Toller ever since--'tried a bit at times,' he confessed, 'with the second
missus.' 'She's with God, let us hope,' said Tom, 'and we'll leave her
alone.'
They came to Barton Sluice. Flat and unadorned are the fields there,
and the Nen is slow, but it was their own land, they loved it, and they
were at rest. They fell into their former habits, and the talk of crops, of
markets, of the weather, and of their neighbours was sweet. Mrs.
Mudge and Miss Everard came now and then to see them in summer
time, and when Mr. Toller slept with his fathers, his daughter and
Helen remained at the farm and managed it between them.

ESTHER

BLACKDEEP FEN, 24th November 1838.
My Dear Esther,--This is your birthday and your wedding-day, and I
have sent you a cake and a knitted cross-over, both of which I have
made myself. I can still knit, although my eyes fail a bit. I hope the
cross-over will be useful during the winter. Tell me, my dear, how you
are. Twenty-eight years ago it is since you came into the world. It was a
dark day with a cold drizzling rain, but at eleven o'clock at night you
were born, and the next morning was bright with beautiful sunshine.
Some people think that Blackdeep must always be dreary at this time of
year, but they are wrong. I love the Fen country. It is my own country.
This house, as you know, has belonged to your father's forefathers for
two hundred years or more, and my father's old house has been in our
family nearly as long. I could not live in London; but I ought not to talk
in this way, for I hold it to be wrong to set anybody against what he has
to do. Your brother Jim is the best of sons. He sits with me in the
evening and reads the paper to me. He goes over to Ely market every
week. He has his dinner at the ordinary, where many of the company
drink more than is good for them, but never once has he come home the
worse for liquor. I had a rare fright a little while ago. I thought there

was something between him and