Clarissa has eloped! With a young man called George Harrington, the one I told you about. She was flirting quite shamelessly with him at the Beauchamps’, but I never dreamt that anything would come of it—I thought she had resigned herself to marrying that horrid dried-up Mr. Ingram—but I must try to tell you everything in order.On Monday, my father took the early train to Manchester. He was to be away two days, and that same afternoon Clarissa left—as I believed—to spend a week with the Fletchers in Brighton. She took an immense quantity of luggage, even for her, but I was looking forward to having the house to myself, and thought no more of it until my father returned on Friday evening. I was playing the piano in the drawing room when I heard him berating one of the maids; as usual, he did not even look in but went straight to his study.A few moments later I heard him tramping along the hall; I assumed that he was going out again, but he burst into the room, seized me by the arm, and lifted me right off my feet, waving a letter in my face and shouting, “Where is your sister?”
