ace of Mrs.
Milroy's nurse were coming, and seeing them and questioning them would
put her father, with his dislike of such things, in no humor to receive
Armadale's application indulgently. The Friday would be the day to send
the letter, and on the Saturday morning if the answer was unfortunately
not favorable, they might meet again, 'I don't like deceiving my father;
he has always been so kind to me. And there will be no need to deceive
him, Allan, if we can only make you friends again.' Those were the last
words the little hypocrite said, when I left them.

"What will the major do? Saturday morning will show. I won't think of it
till Saturday morning has come and gone. They are not man and wife yet;
and again and again I say it, though my brains are still as helpless as
ever, man and wife they shall never be.

"On my way home again, I caught Bashwood at his breakfast, with his poor
old black tea-pot, and his little penny loaf, and his one cheap morsel
of oily butter, and his darned dirty tablecloth. It sickens me to think
of it.

"I coaxed and comforted the miserable old creature till the tears stood
in his eyes, and he quite blushed with pleasure. He undertakes to
look after the Pedgifts with the utmost alacrity. Pedgift the elder he
described, when once roused, as the most obstinate man living; nothing
will induce him to give way, unless Armadale gives way also on his side.
Pedgift the younger is much the more likely of the two to make attempts
at a reconciliation. Such, at least, is Bashwood's opinion. It is of
very little consequence now what happens either way. The only important
thing is to tie my elderly admirer safely again to my apron-string. And
this is done.

"The post is late this morning. It has only just come in, and has
brought me a letter from Midwinter.

"It is a charming letter; it flatters me and flutters me as if I was a
young girl again. No reproaches for my never having written to him; no
hateful hurrying of me, in plain words, to marry him. He only writes
to tell me a piece of news. He has obtained, through his lawyers, a
prospect of being employed as occasional correspondent to a newspaper
which is about to be started in London. The employment will require him
to leave England for the Continent, which would exactly meet his own
wishes for the future, but he cannot consider the proposal seriously
until he has first ascertained whether it would meet my wishes too.
He knows no will but mine