JOHNNY LUDLOW

Johnny Ludlow

BY
MRS. HENRY WOOD
AUTHOR OF “EAST LYNNE,” “THE CHANNINGS,” ETC.

SIXTH SERIES

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1899

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS

JOHNNY LUDLOW

THE MYSTERY AT NUMBER SEVEN

I.—MONTPELLIER-BY-SEA

“Let us go and give her a turn,” cried the Squire.

Tod laughed. “What, all of us?” said he.

“To be sure. All of us. Why not? We’ll start to-morrow.”

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Todhetley, dismay in her mild tones. “Children and all?”

“Children and all; and take Hannah to see to them,” said the Squire. “You don’t count, Joe: you will be off elsewhere.”

“We could never be ready,” said the Mater, looking the image of perplexity. “To-morrow’s Friday. Besides, there would be no time to write to Mary.”

“Write to her!” cried the Squire, turning sharply on his heel as he paced the room in his nankeen morning-coat. “And who do you suppose is going to write to her? Why, it would cause her to make all sorts of preparation, put her to no end of trouble. A pretty conjurer you’d make! We will take her by surprise: that’s what we will do.”

“But if, when we got there, we should find her rooms are let, sir?” said I, the possibility striking me.

“Then we’ll go into others, Johnny. A spell at the seaside will be a change for us all.”

This conversation, and the Squire’s planning-out, arose through a letter we had just received from Mary Blair—poor Blair’s widow, if you have not forgotten him, who went to his end through that Gazette of Jerry’s. After a few ups and downs, trying at this thing for a living, trying at that, Mrs. Blair had now settled in a house at the seaside, and opened a day-school. She hoped to get on in it in time, she wrote, especially if she could be so fortunate as to let her drawing-room to visitors. The Squire, always impulsive and good-hearted, at once cried out that we would go and take it.

“It will be doing her a good turn, you see,” he ran on; “and when we leave I dare say she’ll find other people ready to go in. Let’s see”—picking up the letter to refer to the address—“No. 6, Seaboard Terrace, Montpellier-by-Sea. Whereabouts is Montpellier-by-Sea?”

“Never heard of it in my life,” cried Tod. “Don’t believe there is such a place.”

“Be quiet, Joe. I fancy it lies somewhere towards Saltwater.”

Tod flung back his head. “Saltwater! A nice common place that is!”

“Hold your tongue, sir. Johnny, fetch me the railway guide.”

Upon looking at the guide, it was found there; “Montpellier-by-Sea;” the last