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"Read it," she said

It was rather a business to read it It involved spectacles, a pushing aside of a plate, and a slight turning to catch the light Mrs Baxter read it, and handed it back,three or four times the sound written as "Tut"

"The tiresome boy!" she said querulously, but without alarht to do so He mentions a Mr Cathcart"

Mrs Baxter reached out for the toast-rack

"My dear, there's nothing to be done You knohat Laurie is It'll only ie looked at her uneasily

"I e could do so," she said

"My dear, he'd have written to me--Mr Morton, I mean--if Laurie had been really unwell You see he only says he doesn't attend to his work as he ought"

Maggie took up the letter, put it carefully back into the envelope, and went on with breakfast There was nothing more to be said just then

But she was uneasy, and after breakfast went out into the garden, spud in hand, to think it all over, with the letter in her pocket

Certainly the letter was not alar into account who it was that had written, she was not so sure

She had met Mr Morton but once, and had forirl would form of such a man in the hours of a week-end--a brusque, ordinary kind of barrister without ood deal of shrewd force It was surely rather an extreirl in such a condition of things, asking her to use her influence to dissuade Laurie from his present course of life Plainly the man meant what he said; he had not written to Mrs Baxter, as he explained in the letter, for fear of alar to be alarie stopped at the lower end of the orchard path, took out the letter, and read the last three or four sentences again: Please forgive me if you think it was unnecessary to write Of course I have no doubt whatever that the whole thing is nothing but nonsense; but even nonsense can have a bad effect, and Mr Baxter seems to me to be far too much wrapped up in it I enclose the address of a friend of mine in case you would care to write to him on the subject He was once a Spiritualist, and is now a devout Catholic He takes a view of it that I do not take; but at any rate his advice could do no harm You can trust him to be absolutely discreet