Fanny.

"Why should not she like a love-letter as much as any one else?" said
Kate, who had her own ideas. "Of course she has to tell him about her
mamma, but what need he care for that? Of course mamma thinks that
Joshua need not write to Molly, but Molly won't mind."

"I don't think anything of the kind, miss."

"And besides, Joshua lives in the next parish," said Fanny, "and has a
horse to ride over on if he has anything to say."

"At any rate, I shall write," said Harry, "even at the risk of making
her angry." And he did write as follows:

"BUSTON, _October_, 188--.

"MY OWN DEAR GIRL,--It is impossible that I should not send one line in
answer. Put yourself in my place, and consult your own feelings. Think
that you have a letter so full of love, so noble, so true, so certain to
fill you with joy, and then say whether you would let it pass without a
word of acknowledgment. It would be absolutely impossible. It is not
very probable that I should ask you to break your engagement, which in
the midst of my troubles is the only consolation I have. But when a man
has a rock to stand upon like that, he does not want anything else. As
long as a man has the one person necessary to his happiness to believe
in him, he can put up with the ill opinion of all the others. You are to
me so much that you outweigh all the world.

"I did not choose to have my secret pumped out of me by Augustus
Scarborough. I can tell you the whole truth now. Mountjoy Scarborough
had told me that he regarded you as affianced to him, and required me to
say that I would--drop you. You know now how probable that was. He was
drunk on the occasion,--had made himself purposely drunk, so as to get
over all scruples,--and attacked me with his stick. Then came a
scrimmage, in which he was upset. A sober man has always the best of
it." I am afraid that Harry put in that little word sober for a purpose.
The opportunity of declaring that he was sober was too good too be lost.
"I went away and left him, certainly not dead, nor apparently much hurt.
But if I told all this to Augustus Scarborough, your name must have come
out. Now I should not mind. Now I might tell the truth about you,--with
great pride, if occasion required it. But I couldn't do it then. What
would the world have said to two men fighting in the streets about a
girl, neither of whom had a right to fight about her? That was the
reason why I told an untruth,--because I did not choose to fall i