write a letter
to you at once, so that things may be understood and
finished. Father has no right to be angry with you, anyway
not about me. He says somebody has come and offered him
money. I wish they hadn't, but perhaps you didn't send
them. There's no good in father talking about you and
me. Of course it was a great honour, and all that, but
I'm not at all sure that anybody should try to get above
themselves, not in the way of marrying. And the heart is
everything. So I've told father. If ever I bestow mine, I
think it will be to somebody in a way of business,--just
like father. So I thought I would just write to say that
there couldn't be anything between you and me, were it
ever so; only that I was very much honoured by your coming
down to Margate. I write this to you, because a very
particular friend advises me, and I don't mind telling you
at once,--it is Mr. Moggs. And I shall show it to father.
That is, I have written it twice, and shall keep the
other. It's a pity father should go on so, but he means it
for the best. And as to anything in the way of money,--oh,
Mr. Newton, he's a deal too proud for that.

Yours truly,

MARYANNE NEEFIT.

As to which letter the little baggage was not altogether true in one
respect. She did not keep a copy of the whole letter, but left out
of that which she showed to her father the very material passage
in which she referred to the advice of her particular friend, Mr.
Moggs. Ralph, when he received this letter, felt really grateful to
Polly, and wrote to her a pretty note, in which he acknowledged her
kindness, and expressed his hope that she might always be as happy
as she deserved to be. Then it was that he made up his mind to go
down at once to Popham Villa, thinking that the Neefit nuisance
was sufficiently abated to enable him to devote his time to a more
pleasurable pursuit.

He reached the villa between three and four, and learned from the
gardener's wife at the lodge that Sir Thomas had not as yet returned.
He did not learn that Clarissa was away, and was not aware of that
fact till they all sat down to dinner at seven o'clock. Much had been
done and much endured before that time came. He sauntered slowly up
the road, and looked about the grounds, hoping to find the young
ladies there, as he had so often done during his summer visits; but
there was no one to be seen, and he was obliged to knock at