t her, and there can
be no mistake about it. I have often tried to reason myself into
the belief that the evil day must come sooner or later, and to
prepare myself for it; but I might have spared myself, for it
could not have been worse than it is if I had never anticipated
it. My future is all a blank now. I can't stay in England; so I
have written home to ask them to let me go to New Zealand with
East, and I am sure they will consent, when they know all.

"I shall wait in town till I get the answer. Perhaps I may be
able to get off with East in a few weeks. The sooner the better;
but, of course, I shall not go without seeing you and dear old
Jack. You mustn't mind me calling him Jack. The only thing that
it gives me any pleasure to think about is your engagement. It is
so right; and one wants to see something going right, some one
getting their due, to keep alive one's belief in justice being
done somehow or another in the world. And I do see it, and
acknowledge it, when I think over his history and mine since we
first met. We have both got our due; and you have got yours,
Katie, for you have got the best fellow in England.

"Ah! if I only could think that she has got hers! If I could only
believe that the man she has chosen is worthy of her! I will try
hard to think better of him. There must be more good in him that
I have ever seen, or she would never have engaged herself to him.
But I can't bear to stop here, and see it all going on. The
sooner I am out of England the better. I send you a parcel with
this; it contains her notes, and some old flowers and other
matters which I haven't the heart to burn. You will be the best
judge what should be done with them. If you see your way to
managing it, I should like her to know that I had sent them all
to you, and that, whatever may happen to me hereafter, my love
for her has been the mainstay and the guiding-star of my life
ever since that happy time when you all came to stay with us in
my first long vacation. It found me eaten up with selfishness and
conceit, the puppet of my own lusts and vanities, and has left
me--well never mind what it has left me. At any rate, if I have
not gone from worse to worse, it is all owing to her; and she
ought to know it. It cannot be wrong to let her know what good
she has scattered unknowingly about her path. May God bless and
reward her for it, and you, too, dear cousin, for all your long
love and kindness to one who is very unworthy