the clock struck. I shall seal this up directly. I dare not
trust my morning--my broad daylight mood with it. Now, as soon as you
have got thus far, just take up your pen, and answer me, telling me as
copiously of your affairs as I have written of ours. Heaven bless
you.

"Yours ever,

"Edward Hope."

It was not only Mr Hope's broad daylight mood which was not to be
trusted with this letter. In this hour of midnight a misgiving seized
upon him that it was extravagant. He became aware, when he laid down
his pen, that he was agitated. The door of his room opened into the
garden. He thought he would look out upon the night. It was the night
of the full moon. As he stood in the doorway, the festoons of creepers
that dangled from his little porch waved in the night breeze; long
shadows from the shrubs lay on the grass; and in the depth of one of
these shadows glimmered the green spark of a glow-worm. It was
deliciously cool and serene. Mr Hope stood leaning against the
door-post, with his arms folded, and was not long in settling the
question whether the letter should go.

"Frank will think that I am in love," he considered. "He will not
understand the real state of my feeling. He will think that I am in
love. I should conclude so in his place. But what matters it what he
infers and concludes? I have written exactly what I thought and felt at
the moment, and it is not from such revelations that wrong inferences
are usually drawn. What I have written is true; and truth carries
safely over land and sea--more safely than confidence compounded with
caution. Frank deserves the simplest and freshest confidence from me.
I am glad that no hesitation occurred to me while I wrote. It shall
go--every word of it."

He returned to his desk, sealed and addressed the letter, and placed it
where it was sure to be seen in the morning, and carried to the
post-office before he rose.

CHAPTER NINE.

CHILD'S PLAY.

The afternoon arrived when the children were to have their feast in the
summer-house. From the hour of dinner the little people were as busy as
aldermen's cooks, spreading their table. Sydney thought himself too old
for such play. He was hard at work, filling up the pond he had dug in
his garden, having tried experiments with it for several weeks, and
found that it never held water but in a pouring rain. While he was
occupied with his spade, his sisters and the little Rowlands were
a