." The man's name
was wormwood to him. He at once felt that he would wish to have his
dinner, his fragment of a dinner, brought to him in that solitary
room, and that he might remain secluded for the rest of the evening.
But still he must read the letter;--and he read it.

MY DEAR LORD DUKE,

If my mode of addressing your Grace be too familiar I hope
you will excuse it. It seems to me that if I were to use
one more distant, I should myself be detracting something
from my right to make the claim which I intend to put
forward. You know what my feelings are in reference to
your daughter. I do not pretend to suppose that they
should have the least weight with you. But you know also
what her feelings are for me. A man seems to be vain when
he expresses his conviction of a woman's love for himself.
But this matter is so important to her as well as to me
that I am compelled to lay aside all pretence. If she do
not love me as I love her, then the whole thing drops to
the ground. Then it will be for me to take myself off from
out of your notice,--and from hers, and to keep to myself
whatever heart-breaking I may have to undergo. But if she
be as steadfast in this matter as I am,--if her happiness
be fixed on marrying me as mine is on marrying her,--then,
I think, I am entitled to ask you whether you are
justified in keeping us apart.

I know well what are the discrepancies. Speaking from my
own feeling I regard very little those of rank. I believe
myself to be as good a gentleman as though my father's
forefathers had sat for centuries past in the House of
Lords. I believe that you would have thought so also, had
you and I been brought in contact on any other subject.
The discrepancy in regard to money is, I own, a great
trouble to me. Having no wealth of my own I wish that your
daughter were so circumstanced that I could go out into
the world and earn bread for her. I know myself so well
that I dare say positively that her money,--if it be that
she will have money,--had no attractions for me when I
first became acquainted with her, and adds nothing now to
the persistency with which I claim her hand.

But I venture to ask whether you can dare to keep us apart
if her happiness depends on her love for me? It is now
more than six months since I called upon you in London and
explained my wishes. You will unders