a long letter; but my stupid servants have let the Dean
in, and I hear his cough at this moment on the stairs--he is sadly
out of wind before he reaches the first landing. I think even my
poor 'old man' would beat him at even weights a hundred yards along
the beach. As I shall not get rid of him under an hour, and the post
will by that time be gone out, I must wish you good-bye.--Ever my
dearest Kate's most affectionate

"M. L."

I threw the letter on the floor, and stamped upon it with my feet. And
was this the end of all? To have brooded and pined, and made myself
miserable and well-nigh broken my heart day by day for a man that was
to prove so utterly unworthy as this! To have been thrown over for a
Lady Scapegrace! or, worse still, to have allowed even to myself that
I cared for one who was ready and willing to be sold to a Miss
Molasses.

"Too degrading!" I thought. "No, I'll never care for him again; the
dream is over. What a fool I've been! And yet--why did he send his
horses down to Muddlebury? Why did he serenade me that night from the
Park? Why is he not now with his dear Lady Scapegrace at Scamperly,
where I see by the _Morning Post_ Sir Guy is 'entertaining a party of
fashionables during the frost'? No! I will not give him up quite yet."

On reading her letter over again, which I did many times during the
day, I found a ray of comfort in my voluble correspondent's own
opinion that Frank did not himself care a pin for either of the
ladies, to both of whom the world gave him so unhesitatingly. Well,
that was something, at any rate. As for his wildness and his debts,
and his recklessness and many escapades, I liked him none the worse
for these--what woman ever did? I thought it all over during the whole
day, and by the time that I opened my window for my usual lookout into
the night before going to bed, I am afraid I felt more inclined than
ever to forgive him all that had gone before, and more determined to
find some means of forwarding him the answer I had written to his
note, and which I had been so many times on the point of burning
during the day.

What a bitter cold night it was!--yet the keen north wind felt
pleasant and refreshing on my fevered forehead. There had been a
sprinkling of snow too since sunset, and the open surface of the Park
was completely whitened over--how cheerless and desolate it looked! I
hadn't the heart to stay ver