e feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should
he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was
bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then,
looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near
neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to
lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes,
very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home
was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might
have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in
his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper,
and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting
off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to
this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to
bed.

Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven,
he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his
depot of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and
herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that
moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss
Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send
it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by
writing it. So he did write it, as follows:--"Greshamsbury, June,
185--. My dear Miss Dunstable--" When he had got so far, he leaned
back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to
find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never
written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and
now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not
previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the
paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He
would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over
and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain
language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march
along with sesquipodalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of
interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and
there was not a note of interjection in it.

MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,

I think it right to confess that I should not now be
writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe
by other judgement than my own that the proposition which
I a