hing,
irresistible. He dreamed of her all night, and wakened up the next
morning to a calculation of how far his income would allow him to furnish
his pretty new parsonage with that crowning blessing, a wife. For a day
or two he did up little sums, and sighed, and thought of Ellinor, her
face listening with admiring interest to his sermons, her arm passed into
his as they went together round the parish; her sweet voice instructing
classes in his schools--turn where he would, in his imagination Ellinor's
presence rose up before him.

The consequence was that he wrote an offer, which he found a far more
perplexing piece of composition than a sermon; a real hearty expression
of love, going on, over all obstacles, to a straightforward explanation
of his present prospects and future hopes, and winding up with the
information that on the succeeding morning he would call to know whether
he might speak to Mr. Wilkins on the subject of this letter. It was
given to Ellinor in the evening, as she was sitting with Miss Monro in
the library. Mr. Wilkins was dining out, she hardly knew where, as it
was a sudden engagement, of which he had sent word from the office--a
gentleman's dinner-party, she supposed, as he had dressed in Hamley
without coming home. Ellinor turned over the letter when it was brought
to her, as some people do when they cannot recognise the handwriting, as
if to discover from paper or seal what two moments would assure them of,
if they opened the letter and looked at the signature. Ellinor could not
guess who had written it by any outward sign; but the moment she saw the
name "Herbert Livingstone," the meaning of the letter flashed upon her
and she coloured all over. She put the letter away, unread, for a few
minutes, and then made some excuse for leaving the room and going
upstairs. When safe in her bed-chamber, she read the young man's eager
words with a sense of self-reproach. How must she, engaged to one man,
have been behaving to another, if this was the result of a single
evening's interview? The self-reproach was unjustly bestowed; but with
that we have nothing to do. She made herself very miserable; and at last
went down with a heavy heart to go on with Dante, and rummage up words in
the dictionary. All the time she seemed to Miss Monro to be plodding on
with her Italian more diligently and sedately than usual, she was
planning in her own mind to speak to her father as soon as he returned
(and