The next afternoon Edith was finally given a letter from Sir Anthony.

Edith had been visiting Alice in the afternoon together with her mother that day when Lisa Drewe got home from school.

Lisa saw at once that Lady Edith was sitting there at the kitchen table with Alice in her lap. She pulled the letter out of her schoolbag and said:

"Good afternoon Lady Edith! I have a letter to you from Sir Anthony Strallan."

"Sir Anthony", Lady Edith gasped, looking very shocked. Lisa understood why. Because across the kitchen table Lady Grantham was sitting, looking just as shocked as her daughter. It was obvious that Lady Edith didn't want her mother to know that she had been in contact with the man who had abandoned her at the altar a couple of years earlier.

Lisa wished that she had seen Lady Grantham earlier, so she could have waited with the letter. Now it was too late.

"Good afternoon, Lady Grantham", she said. Then she just gave Lady Edith the letter without saying anything more.

...

Alice was sitting in her Mummy's lap, playing with her rattle, when Lisa came home. Granny was sitting on the other side of the table, smiling at Alice. It was so nice to have them both there.

Lisa gave Mummy a small white parcel. "From Sir Anthony", Lisa said.

Sir Anthony? Who could that be, Alice wondered. Lady Edith was another name for Mummy of course. Alice had heard Lisa and Lisa's parents call Mummy Lady Edith many times.

Sir Anthony, could that be another name for Alice's Daddy, then?

That would be lovely! Alice wanted to have a Daddy of her own, like the Drewe children had. She so wished he would come and visit her some time.

...

Sir Anthony had stood in his library for a long time with the two letters in his hand before deciding which one to send. But in his heart he had already decided, even before he started to copy most of Jane's letter. If he was going to win Edith back, he had to do it with his own words, not the words of a romantic little girl.

So he had sealed his own letter and taken it to Argyll. The copy of Jane's letter he had left among the general debris on his library table.

...

Edith was thankful that Cora didn't say anything about the letter or its sender on their way back home from the Drewes. Edith herself was also very quiet. She wanted to get back into her own room, so she could open the letter and read it in private.

She wasn't sure if she was happy or only worried about Anthony's letter.

Why had he written a letter to her? Hadn't it been obvious to him that she didn't want to see him again?

Because it caused her too much pain.

...

Waiting for a reaction from Lady Edith to his letter made Sir Anthony uneasy. He couldn't think of anything else, his thoughts kept returning to his letter like the tongue keeps returning to a hole in a tooth.

Every hour that went by made him more nervous. Hadn't she got his letter? Or hadn't she liked it?

And what would he say to her if she did come back to Locksley?

He woke up earlier than usual in the mornings, more than two hours before his breakfast would be served and quite unable to fall asleep again. The third time this happened he decided to get up and take a walk instead of tossing and turning in bed.

He went by the sties and there he met Argyll. Sir Anthony was surprised that the man was already up and about. But Argyll was probably up this early every morning. Sir Anthony had never realised that, because he never left the house before finishing his breakfast around nine.

"Good morning, Sir", Argyll said with a friendly smile. "I'm making breakfast for some of the adult pigs now, all the piglets have already got theirs."

"Good morning!" Sir Anthony said, feeling a little guilty that his pig keeper had to get up so early. But of course, Argyll had to be up early to feed the pigs breakfast, just as Anthony's cook had to be up early to make Anthony breakfast. And if Anthony himself started to rise earlier in the mornings he would only make Mrs Barnes get up even earlier. He himself didn't even know how to boil an egg or make a kettle of tea, and now that his right arm was useless it was too late to learn.

So he didn't say anything about the early hour. Instead he started to discuss the pigs' food with Argyll.

All the waste and leftovers from Locksley's kitchen went into the pigs' buckets. So did the waste from Argyll's own kitchen and vegetable garden, and the waste from the other tenants' kitchens and gardens, if they didn't keep their own pigs. Weeds and grass from the estate's garden were also added into the buckets, as well as some fresh vegetables, fruit and grain.

Right now Argyll was busy chopping up carrots, putting some of them into each of the many buckets he had in front of him.

"Pigs eat everything, don't they", Sir Anthony said, taking a quick look into the nearest bucket, feeling happy that this sloppy mixture wasn't his own breakfast.

"Yes, they do. And preferably a lot of that", Argyll said with a smile. "But they do have preferences. Most of them love carrots, so I try to give them a lot of those. As I'm sure you know they like the carrot tops also, so I don't have to take those off. They are probably full of vitamins, perhaps we ought to eat them ourselves. Then again it is good to have them for the pigs, not much get wasted on this estate."

"That is good to hear", Sir Anthony said. "You are doing such a great job with the pigs. I'm so thankful that you decided to work for me."

"Thank you, Sir! And I'm truly thankful that I was offered it."

...

It was early in the morning and Sir Brumble was lying in his sty. He was thinking about the most remarkable thing that had happened in his life, the trip in the lorry to the place with many pigs. Why had they gone there? Such a long trip and then back again, and nothing important had really happened during all that time.

Humans were impossible to understand, but this was stranger than usual. What good was that trip to Argyll and his master?

Perhaps they had gone there to try to sell Sir Brumble and White Beauty? That was what often happened to the piglets once they were grown. But no, that was too unbelievable. White Beauty, perhaps, but not Sir Brumble. He was needed here at Locksley.

And besides, if they tried to sell him they would have got plenty of offers. There must be some other explanation.

Sir Brumble noticed that he had more time than usual to think before breakfast. What had happened? This couldn't be right! Argyll was late, Sir Brumble was sure of that. Sir Brumble's stomach was screaming out for food.

Perhaps Argyll had already been there, without Sir Brumble noticing? He got onto his feet to have a look. But the trough was empty.

Had Argyll forgotten all about Sir Brumble? How could he? What good would a boar be to the estate if he was starved to death?

But then his time of agony was over. Argyll was - finally - emptying the bucket with Sir Brumbles breakfast into his trough.

Sir Brumble rushed to the trough with a surprising agility. This was no time for dignity. He wanted to show Argyll that he wasn't pleased. He started eating immediately - very nice carrots, he thought.

The pig hadn't moved that fast for ages.

"I think you were hungry", Argyll said with an amused smile. "Well, you will need your strength. Golden Blossom will be ready for you this afternoon or maybe tomorrow."

Then Argyll went to feed the next pig.

But now Sir Brumble was ready to forgive Argyll his tardiness. Golden Blossom! A wonderfully fat sow, a little older, one of Sir Brumble's first. She had been bigger than him the first time, but now he had outgrown her and every other sow.

This would be great, Sir Brumble thought. He hadn't had a sow since he was with White Beauty the second time. That was almost a week ago, so it was really upon time.

AN: Thank you so much for still reading my story! I do apreciate it.

And thank you even more to those of you who write all the lovely reviews! I treasure every one of them.

As every writer of fanfiction knows, it is the reviews that make you keep writing. Sometimes they give me new ideas, sometimes they make me laugh out loud. And always they make me happy.