nd cousin if he likes. Only if he is
engaged to her, I think it odd that he shouldn't write and tell us."

"I'm sure he's not engaged to her yet. She wouldn't write at all in
that way if they were engaged. Everybody would be told at once, and
Sir Alured would never be able to keep it a secret. Why should there
be a secret? But I'm sure she is very fond of him. Mary would never
write about any man in that way unless she were beginning to be
attached to him."

About ten days after this there came two letters from Wharton Hall to
Manchester Square, the shortest of which shall be given first. It ran
as follows:--

MY DEAR FATHER,--

I have proposed to my cousin Mary, and she has accepted
me. Everybody here seems to like the idea. I hope it will
not displease you. Of course you and Emily will come down.
I will tell you when the day is fixed.

Your affectionate son,

EVERETT WHARTON.

This the old man read as he sat at breakfast with his daughter
opposite to him, while Emily was reading a very much longer letter
from the same house. "So it's going to be just as you guessed," he
said.

"I was quite sure of it, papa. Is that from Everett? Is he very
happy?"

"Upon my word, I can't say whether he's happy or not. If he had got a
new horse he would have written at much greater length about it. It
seems, however, to be quite fixed."

"Oh, yes. This is from Mary. She is happy at any rate. I suppose men
never say so much about these things as women."

"May I see Mary's letter?"

"I don't think it would be quite fair, papa. It's only a girl's
rhapsody about the man she loves,--very nice and womanly, but not
intended for any one but me. It does not seem that they mean to wait
very long."

"Why should they wait? Is any day fixed?"

"Mary says that Everett talks about the middle of May. Of course you
will go down."

"We must both go."

"You will at any rate. Don't promise for me just at present. It must
make Sir Alured very happy. It is almost the same as finding himself
at last with a son of his own. I suppose they will live at Wharton
altogether now,--unless Everett gets into Parliament."

But the reader may see the young lady's letter, though her future
father-in-law was not permitted to do so, and will perceive that
there was a paragraph at the close of it which perhaps was more
conducive to Emily's secrecy than her feelings as to the sacred
obligations of female correspondence.