ing, and approved of his
plans unreservedly. The ten pounds she had given to a starving man.

"I wanted to celebrate your choice between life and death, and
the dawn of your new era, by making a human being happy, if only
for a little while. You should have seen his face when he
understood all that lump of money was really his. What emotions
must have stirred in him! He must have thought that the age of
miracles had come again. It gave me the sensation of drinking
some ethereal brand of champagne--it was to your happiness, of
course, I drank.

"I was aware, from the beginning, that you were beset with
dangers from your own temperament and disposition. But perhaps,
after all, it is best that your temperament should have worked
itself out its own way. You will emerge the better and the
stronger for it in the end, and then, when you do come into your
happiness, you will be able to appreciate it with your whole
being. But I must own to a sense of guilt--I might have been a
truer friend to you had it not been for my selfish love for you.
You have yet to forgive me for that.

"It rather vexes me that I cannot do more than just look on and
see events shape themselves inevitably, like a spring uncoiling.
I should so much have loved to be the good fairy of your life.
But, alas! that cannot be, since its very inner force is its own
good fairy.

"P. S. I have managed to write you a whole letter without one
flippant phrase. Which is certainly a proof that your admonition
to me not to look upon you, in apron and shirt-sleeves, picking
up type, as a comic picture has made a due impression on me. I am
seeing you the whole time as a sort of glorified, idealised
workman, enveloped in a mystic halo, and standing for the dignity
of labor and the nobility of man. By the way, I have met Miss
Medhurst. I had quite a thrill as we shook hands! And she had not
the slightest idea I was of any special interest, more than any
other casual person she might meet. Strange dramatic position,
was it not? Of course, I never want her to know about me. Which
reminds me, I am rather alarmed lest your mood of confession
should have led you to make me known to your sire--I hope not.
And please don't. May I come to Dover for a day now and again in
order to see you for ten