entertainment should consist of dismissing them. She made no
reply to Mr. Goodwood; but at the end of three days she wrote to Lord
Warburton, and the letter belongs to our history.

DEAR LORD WARBURTON--A great deal of earnest thought has not led me to
change my mind about the suggestion you were so kind as to make me the
other day. I am not, I am really and truly not, able to regard you
in the light of a companion for life; or to think of your home--your
various homes--as the settled seat of my existence. These things cannot
be reasoned about, and I very earnestly entreat you not to return to
the subject we discussed so exhaustively. We see our lives from our own
point of view; that is the privilege of the weakest and humblest of us;
and I shall never be able to see mine in the manner you proposed. Kindly
let this suffice you, and do me the justice to believe that I have given
your proposal the deeply respectful consideration it deserves. It is
with this very great regard that I remain sincerely yours,

ISABEL ARCHER.

While the author of this missive was making up her mind to dispatch it
Henrietta Stackpole formed a resolve which was accompanied by no demur.
She invited Ralph Touchett to take a walk with her in the garden, and
when he had assented with that alacrity which seemed constantly to
testify to his high expectations, she informed him that she had a favour
to ask of him. It may be admitted that at this information the young man
flinched; for we know that Miss Stackpole had struck him as apt to push
an advantage. The alarm was unreasoned, however; for he was clear about
the area of her indiscretion as little as advised of its vertical depth,
and he made a very civil profession of the desire to serve her. He
was afraid of her and presently told her so. "When you look at me in a
certain way my knees knock together, my faculties desert me; I'm filled
with trepidation and I ask only for strength to execute your commands.
You've an address that I've never encountered in any woman."

"Well," Henrietta replied good-humouredly, "if I had not known before
that you were trying somehow to abash me I should know it now. Of course
I'm easy game--I was brought up with such different customs and ideas.
I'm not used to your arbitrary standards, and I've never been spoken to
in America as you have spoken to me. If a gentleman conversing with me
over there were to speak to me like that I shouldn't know what to make
of it. We