f this, and then let me
have one line.

Your affectionate friend,

MARY THORNE.

P.S.--Of course I cannot be at dear Beatrice's marriage;
but when they come back to the parsonage, I shall see her.
I am sure they will both be happy, because they are so
good. I need hardly say that I shall think of them on
their wedding day.

When she had finished her letter, she addressed it plainly, in her
own somewhat bold handwriting, to Francis N. Gresham, Jun., Esq., and
then took it herself to the little village post-office. There should
be nothing underhand about her correspondence: all the Greshamsbury
world should know of it--that world of which she had spoken in her
letter--if that world so pleased. Having put her penny label on it,
she handed it, with an open brow and an unembarrassed face, to the
baker's wife, who was Her Majesty's postmistress at Greshamsbury;
and, having so finished her work, she returned to see the table
prepared for her uncle's dinner. "I will say nothing to him," said
she to herself, "till I get the answer. He will not talk to me about
it, so why should I trouble him?"

CHAPTER XLIII

The Race of Scatcherd Becomes Extinct

It will not be imagined, at any rate by feminine readers, that Mary's
letter was written off at once, without alterations and changes, or
the necessity for a fair copy. Letters from one young lady to another
are doubtless written in this manner, and even with them it might
sometimes be better if more patience had been taken; but with Mary's
first letter to her lover--her first love-letter, if love-letter it
can be called--much more care was used. It was copied and re-copied,
and when she returned from posting it, it was read and re-read.

"It is very cold," she said to herself; "he will think I have no
heart, that I have never loved him!" And then she all but resolved to
run down to the baker's wife, and get back her letter, that she might
alter it. "But it will be better so," she said again. "If I touched
his feelings now, he would never bring himself to leave me. It is
right that I should be cold to him. I should be false to myself if
I tried to move his love--I, who have nothing to give him in return
for it." And so she made no further visit to the post-office, and the
letter went on its way.

We will now follow its fortunes for a short while, and explain how
it was that Mary received no answer for a week; a week, it may well
be imagin