all your kindness, and care of me for eighteen
years, and believe me to be

Yours affectionately,

MAUD.

It is needless to say that Lady Herriesson
relapsed into hysterics on reading this,
and Sir Andrew raged in a very terrible
manner. Was there ever anything so monstrous,
so utterly inconceivable as such
conduct? That any one belonging to him
should disgrace herself thus—should make
herself the talk of the whole country-side,
and run off in this shameful way, and then,
to crown the enormity, proclaim that she
was gone to earn her bread! Good God!
such a thing as this he had never even
heard of in the whole course of his experience!
The girl, if caught, must be
treated as a lunatic; and to shut her up
would save her, perhaps, from a worse fate;
for what could one expect such a creature,
who set all laws, all authority at defiance,
to come to?

Of course, messengers were sent in all
directions to the nearest railway-stations,
and all the neighbouring villages, but nothing
could be heard of the missing young
lady. The news reached John Miles, on
the swift wing of rumour brought from the
great house, very early in the day. 'Liza
rushed in, heavily laden, and discharged
the intelligence, much as she was wont to
empty the coal-box upon the fire—full at
him. And, strange to say, he was less
horrified than any one. He was grieved
that she had taken such a step (he knew
nothing of its object, of course); but he
felt that even this, reprehensible as it was,
was better than her emancipating herself
from her detested life by marriage with a
man like Mr. Durborough. He tried to
assure himself that his own hopeless love
had nothing to say to this sense of relief in
finding that she had not consented to be
another's; but that it was purely because
that other was unworthy of her, and that,
knowing Maud's character, he knew that
had she so consented to perjure herself, she
would have been an utterly miserable woman.
At all events there was the thankfulness
at his heart that she had not done
this thing; and however the world—especially
the world of Mortlands—might view
the extraordinary step she had taken, it
was only with sorrow he thought of it, as
complicating the difficulties of her position
with regard to Sir Andrew. He had very
little doubt that she had gone to some
friend in London, and would be heard
of in the course of a day or two. And
on the morning of the fifth day a letter did
come; but so short, bold, and vague in its
contents, that Lady Herriesson's disquietudescould by no means be allayed. Maud
wrote, indeed, that she was well, and happy;
but that was all. There was no clue to
where, or in what capacity she was living.
The post-mark on the letter was "Bristol."
The police in that city were communicated
with: they could obtain no clue to the
mystery.

Sir Andrew would have inserted an advertisement
in the Times, but for his dread
of increasing the publicity of this disgraceful
scandal. All attempts to hush up, or explain
away, the young lady's disappearance
were of course useless. It was very soon
generally known; but it was also known
that no allusion was to be made to it before
Sir Andrew. She was supposed to be " on
a visit." And in this uncomfortable state
matters remained for three weeks, during
which John Miles's anxiety to learn what
had really become of Maud, became naturally
greater every day. It was then that
a trifling incident occurred which aroused
all the active energy of the man's nature;
for it seemed to him to have some possible
bearing upon Miss Pomeroy's fate.

NOTE TO "A BATTLE AT SEA."
In the paper, " A Battle at Sea," published in No.
76, vol. iii., New Series, a reference to the source
whence the writer derived his information was accidentally
omitted. The facts are condensed from an
account of the battle in " Life on Board a Man of
War," by a British Seaman, published by Blackie,
Fullarton, and Co., Glasgow, 1829.

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