ing there on the
gate he planned the wording of his letters;--of his first letter, and
of his second, and of his third. They should be very like to each
other,--should hardly be more than a repetition of the same words.
"If now you are ready for me, then Lily, am I, as ever, still ready
for you." And then "if now" again, and again "if now;"--and still
"if now". When his hair should be grey, and the wrinkles on his
cheeks,--ay, though they should be on hers, he would still continue
to tell her from year to year that he was ready to take her. Surely
some day that "if now" would prevail. And should it never prevail,
the merit of his constancy should be its own reward.

Such letters as those she would surely keep. Then he looked forward,
down into the valley of coming years, and fancied her as she might
sit reading them in the twilight of some long evening,--letters which
had been written all in vain. He thought that he could look forward
with some satisfaction towards the close of his own career, in having
been the hero of such a love-story. At any rate, if such a story were
to be his story, the melancholy attached to it should arise from no
fault of his own. He would still press her to be his wife. And then
as he remembered that he was only twenty-seven and that she was
twenty-four, he began to marvel at the feeling of grey old age which
had come upon him, and tried to make himself believe that he would
have her yet before the bloom was off her cheek.

He went into the cottage and made his way at once into the room in
which Lady Julia was sitting. She did not speak at first, but looked
anxiously into his face. And he did not speak, but turned to a table
near the window and took up a book,--though the room was too dark for
him to see to read the words. "John," at last said Lady Julia.

"Well, my lady?"

"Have you nothing to tell me, John?"

"Nothing on earth,--except the same old story, which has now become a
matter of course."

"But, John, will you not tell me what she has said?"

"Lady Julia, she has said no; simply no. It is a very easy word to
say, and she has said it so often that it seems to come from her
quite naturally." Then he got a candle and sat down over the fire
with a volume of a novel. It was not yet past five, and Lady Julia
did not go upstairs to dress till six, and therefore there was an
hour during which they were together. John had at first been rather
grand to his old friend, and very uncommu