A Bit of Rough Road by Amy Le Feuvre

"MY DEAR MISS ST. CLAIR,-You ought never to have left me. I can't think why you have been worrying yourself over the poultry-woman. I note what you say about my sister, Mrs. Harper. I have written to her saying it is not convenient for me to receive her at present, but that I hope to see her later on. If you had come back the first thing on Wednesday morning, things would have been better. As it is, you have been away three days, and now I cannot see my way to having you back. Mrs. Hadley says if you return, she will leave me. I cannot lose the Hadleys; they know my ways, and have been with me ten years. I should be lost without them. It is very tiresome that you and Mrs. Hadley do not get on together. I am a miserable old man, and realise more and more that I am never meant to have a friend. Mrs. Hadley is improving in her cooking again. She seems to manage for me better when you are not here. She says you fuss her.

"I do not think I owe you anything, for I paid you the morning you left me. If there are a few shillings over from what I gave you for your fare, you may keep them. I do not think it will be wise for you to return here. Mrs. Hadley says you left nothing about your room, but packed everything in your trunk, and took the keys with you. She was hurt at your want of confidence in her, and said she would not touch a hairpin of yours. But this makes it easy to send your trunk by rail to you. I will leave you to pay the carriage of it at your end, as it is always safer doing so. Hadley says he can ask the baker to take it in his cart to the station to-day. I do seem unfortunate in having no one of my own class to associate with, but I cannot lose the Hadleys. Why do women always disagree?