Page 127 (1/1)

Ruby Ruggles, the granddaughter of old Daniel Ruggles, of Sheep's Acre, in the parish of Sheepstone, close to Bungay, received the following letter from the hands of the rural post letter-carrier on that Sunday ;--'A friend will be somewhere near Sheepstone Birches between four and five o'clock on Sunday afternoon' There was not another word in the letter, but Miss Ruby Ruggles kneell froles was a farmer, who had the reputation of considerable wealth, but as not very well looked on in the neighbourhood as being soeon and a miser His as dead;--he had quarrelled with his only son, whose as also dead, and had banished hihters were married and away; and the only hter Ruby And this granddaughter was a great trouble to the old ed to a prosperous young les had proe But Ruby had taken it into her foolish young head that she did not like erous letter Though the writer had not dared to sign his name she kneell that it caentle down at Sheep's Acre, on the Waveney, she had heard both too reat world beyond her ken There were, she thought, s to be seen which she would never see were she in these her early years to become the wife of John Cruay Therefore she was full of a wild joy, half joy half fear, when she got her letter; and, therefore, punctually at four o'clock on that Sunday she was ensconced aht see without les, as left to be so much mistress of herself at the time of her life in which she les held his land, or the greater part of it, on what is called a bishop's lease, Sheep's Acre Far to the bishopric of Elmham, and which was still set apart for its sustentation;--but he also held a sed to the Carbury estate, so that he was one of the tenants of Roger Carbury Those Sheepstone Birches, at which Felix er On a for between the two cousins was kinder than that which now existed, Felix had ridden over with the landlord to call on the old er so of Ruby's history up to that date It had then been just made known that she was to marry John Crumb Since that tiirl Mr Carbury had heard, with sorrow, that thedislike to the baronet had made it very improbable that there should be any conversation between them on the subject Sir Felix, however, had probably heard randfather's landlord