ing seemed to be
possible. Nor do I know as yet whether you are aware of
the business which has brought Mr Whittlestaff to town.

I suppose I am to take it for granted that all that he
tells me is true; though when I think what it is that I
have to accept,--and that on the word of a man who is not
your father, and who is a perfect stranger to me,--it does
seem as though I were assuming a great deal. And yet it is
no more than I asked him to do for me when I saw him at
his own house.

I had no time then to ask for your permission; nor, had
I asked for it, would you have granted it to me. You had
pledged yourself, and would not have broken your pledge.
If I asked for your hand at all, it was from him that I
had to ask. How will it be with me if you shall refuse to
come to me at his bidding?

I have never told you that I loved you, nor have you
expressed your willingness to receive my love. Dear Mary,
how shall it be? No doubt I do count upon you in my very
heart as being my own. After this week of troubles it
seems as though I can look back upon a former time in
which you and I had talked to one another as though we had
been lovers. May I not think that it was so? May it not be
so? May I not call you my Mary?

And indeed between man and man, as I would say, only that
you are not a man, have I not a right to assume that it
is so? I told him that it was so down at Croker's Hall,
and he did not contradict me. And now he has been the most
indiscreet of men, and has allowed all your secrets to
escape from his breast. He has told me that you love me,
and has bade me do as seems good to me in speaking to you
of my love.

But, Mary, why should there be any mock modesty or
pretence between us? When a man and woman mean to become
husband and wife, they should at any rate be earnest in
their profession. I am sure of my love for you, and of my
earnest longing to make you my wife. Tell me;--am I not
right in counting upon you for wishing the same thing?

What shall I say in writing to you of Mr Whittlestaff? To
me personally he assumes the language of an enemy. But he
contrives to do so in such a way that I can take it only
as the expression of his regret that I should be found to
be standing in his way. His devotion to you is the most
beautiful expression of self-abnegation that I have ever