is enough for any
statement of facts, without mine to help it. However, since you will
have it so, here I am writing.

"But really it is very awkward. What do you wish me to say, and how
shall I say it? You want a testimony, I suppose. Well, then, this is to
certify, that you and I are the best friends in the world, and mean to
remain so, in spite of the fact that we once meant to be more than
friends, and have found out that we made a mistake. Yes, it was a
mistake. We both know it now. But anybody may be mistaken; it is no
shame, either to you or me, especially since we have remedied the error
after we discovered it. Really, I am in admiration of our
clear-sightedness and bravery, in breaking loose, in despite of the
trammels of conventionality. But you never were bound by those
trammels, or any other, except what you call 'duty.' So I herewith
declare you free,--that is what you want me to say, is it not?--free
with all the honours, and with the full preservation of my regards and
high consideration. Indeed, I do not believe I ever shall hold anybody
else in _quite_ such high consideration; but perhaps that very fact
made me unfit to be anything but your friend. I am afraid you are too
good for me, in stern earnest; but I have a notion that will be no
disadvantage to you in certain other sweet eyes that I know; the
goodness, I mean, not anything else.

"We are here, at this loveliest of lovely places; but we have got
enough of it, and are going to spend some weeks in the Tyrol. I suppose
I know where to imagine _you_, at least part of the summer. And you
will know where to imagine me next winter, when I tell you that in the
fall the probability is that I shall become Mrs. St. Leger. You may
tell Dolly. Didn't I remark to her once that she and I had better
effect an exchange? Funny, wasn't it? However, for the present I am, as
I have long been, your very sincere friend, CHRISTINA THAYER."

Dolly read the letter and stared at it, and finally returned it without
raising her eyes. And then she sat looking straight before her, while
her face might be likened to the evening sky when the afterglow is
catching the clouds. From point to point the flush catches, cloud after
cloud is lighted up, until under the whole heaven there is one crimson
glow. Dolly was not much given to blushing, she was not at all wont to
be a prey to shyness; what had come over her now? When Lawrence St.
Leger had talked to her on this very same