ed with you. But yet a
feeling of shamefacedness,--what some ladies consider as
modesty, though it might more properly be called _mauvaise
honte_,--forced me into temporary silence. What could I
wish better than to be loved by such a one as you? In the
first place there is the rank which goes for much with
me. Then there is the money, which I admit counts for
something. I would never have allowed myself to marry even
if I had chanced to love a poor man. Then there are the
manners, and the peculiar station before the world, which
is quite separate from the rank. To me these alone are
irresistible. Shall I say too that personal appearance
does count for much. I can fancy myself marrying an ugly
man, but I can fancy also that I could not do it without
something of disgust.

Miss Altifiorla when she wrote this had understood well that vanity
and love of flattery were conspicuous traits in the character of her
admirer.

Having owned so much, what is there more to say than that
I am the happiest woman between the seas?

The reader must be here told that this letter had been copied out a
second time because in the first copy she had allowed the word girl
to pass in the above sentence. Something told her that she had better
write woman instead, and she had written it.

What more is there for me to add to the above except
to tell you that I love you with all my heart. Months
ago,--it seems to be years now,--when Cecilia Holt had
caught your fancy, I did regard her as the most fortunate
girl. But I did not regard you as the happiest of men,
because I felt sure that there was a something between you
which would not suit. There is an asperity, rather than
strictness, about her which I knew your spirit would not
brook. She would have borne the battlings which would
have arisen with an equal temper. She can indeed bear all
things with equanimity--as she does her present position.
But you, though you would have battled and have conquered,
would still have suffered. I do not think that the wife
you now desire is one with whom you will have to wage
war. Shall I say that if you marry her whom you have now
asked to join her lot with yours, there will be no such
fighting? I think that I shall know how to hold my own
against the world as your wife. But with you I shall only
attempt to hold my own by making myself one wit