told him that Mr. Norton advised that Miss Blandy's papers be seized
forthwith, but to this Mr. Blandy would not agree. "I never in all
my life read a letter that came to my daughter," said the scrupulous
old man; but he asked Susan to secure any of the powder she could
find.

Determined at once to satisfy himself of the truth, Mr. Blandy rose
and went downstairs to breakfast. There was present at that meal,
besides himself and Mary, one Robert Littleton, his clerk, who had
returned the night before from a holiday in Warwickshire. The old
man appeared to him "in great agony, and complained very much." Mary
handed her father his tea in his "particular dish." He tasted it,
and, fixing his eyes upon her, remarked that it had a bad, gritty
taste, and asked if she had put anything into it. The girl trembled
and changed countenance, muttering that it was made as usual; to
hide her confusion she hurried from the room. Mr. Blandy poured his
tea into "the cat's basin" and sent for a fresh supply. After
breakfast, Mary asked Littleton what had become of the tea, and,
being told, seemed to him much upset by the occurrence. When the old
man had finished his meal, he went into the kitchen to shave. While
there he observed to his daughter, in presence of Betty Binfield, "I
had like to have been poisoned once," referring to an occasion when
he and two friends drank something hurtful at the coffee house. "One
of these gentlemen died immediately, the other is dead now," said
he; "I have survived them both, and it is my fortune to be poisoned
at last," and, looking "very hard" at her, he turned away.

Miss Blandy must have been blind indeed had she failed to see the
significance of these incidents. Anything but obtuse, she at once
decided to take instant measures for her own protection. She went up