orge Bartram to Miss Garth._

"Paris, April 13th.

"DEAR MISS GARTH--I have just written, with a heavy heart, to my uncle,
and I think I owe it to your kind interest in me not to omit writing
next to you.

"You will feel for my disappointment, I am sure, when I tell you, in the
fewest and plainest words, that Miss Vanstone has refused me.

"My vanity may have grievously misled me, but I confess I expected a
very different result. My vanity may be misleading me still; for I must
acknowledge to you privately that I think Miss Vanstone was sorry to
refuse me. The reason she gave for her decision--no doubt a sufficient
reason in her estimation--did not at the time, and does not now, seem
sufficient to _me_. Sh e spoke in the sweetest and kindest manner, but
she firmly declared that 'her family misfortunes' left her no honorable
alternative--but to think of my own interests as I had not thought of
them myself--and gratefully to decline accepting my offer.

"She was so painfully agitated that I could not venture to plead my own
cause as I might otherwise have pleaded it. At the first attempt I
made to touch the personal question, she entreated me to spare her, and
abruptly left the room. I am still ignorant whether I am to interpret
the 'family misfortunes' which have set up this barrier between us, as
meaning the misfortune for which her parents alone are to blame, or
the misfortune of her having such a woman as Mrs. Noel Vanstone for her
sister. In whichever of these circumstances the obstacle lies, it is
no obstacle in my estimation. Can nothing remove it? Is there no hope?
Forgive me for asking these questions. I cannot bear up against my
bitter disappointment. Neither she, nor you, nor any one but myself, can
know how I love her.

"Ever most truly yours,

"GEORGE BARTRAM.

"P. S.--I shall leave for England in a day or two, passing through
London on my way to St. Crux. There are family reasons, connected with
the hateful subject of money, which make me look forward with anything
but pleasure to my next interview with my uncle. If you address your
letter to Long's Hotel, it will be sure to reach me."

III.

_From Miss Garth to George Bartram._

"Westmoreland House, April 16th.

"DEAR MR. BARTRAM--You only did me justice in supposing that your letter
would distress me. If you had supposed that it would make me excessively
angry as well, you would not have been far wrong. I have no patience
with the pride a