ther gossip I reserve for our meeting. Meanwhile,
adieu, and if any of my tasks bore you, omit them at once, except
the white roses and the Brussels veil, which Lady Jane is most
anxious for.

"Sincerely yours,
"Charlotte Callonby."

How much did these few and apparently common-place lines convey to me?
First, my visit was not only expected, but actually looked forward to,
canvassed--perhaps I might almost whisper to myself the flattery--wished
for. Again, Lady Jane's health was spoken of as precarious, less actual
illness--I said to myself--than mere delicacy requiring the bluer sky and
warmer airs of Italy. Perhaps her spirits were affected--some mental
malady--some ill-placed passion--que sais je? In fact my brain run on
so fast in its devisings, that by a quick process, less logical than
pleasing, I satisfied myself that the lovely Lady Jane Callonby was
actually in love, with whom let the reader guess at. And Lord Callonby
too, about to join the ministry--well, all the better to have one's
father-in-law in power--promotion is so cursed slow now a-days. And
lastly, the sly allusion to the commissions--the mechancete of
introducing her name to interest me. With such materials as these to
build upon, frail as they may seem to others, I found no difficulty in
regarding myself as the dear friend of the family, and the acknowledged
suitor of Lady Jane.

In the midst, however, of all my self-gratulation, my eye fell upon the
letter of Emily Bingham, and I suddenly remembered how fatal to all such
happy anticipations it might prove. I tore it open in passionate haste
and read--

"My dear Mr. Lorrequer--As from the interview we have had this
morning I am inclined to believe that I have gained your affections,
I think that I should ill requite such a state of your feeling for
me, were I to conceal that I cannot return you mine--in fact they
are not mine to bestow. This frank avowal, whatever pain it may
have cost me, I think I owe to you to make. You will perhaps say,
the confession should have been earlier; to which I reply, it should
have been so, had I known, or even guessed at the nature of your
feelings for me. For--and I write it in all truth, and perfect
respect for you--I only saw in your attentions the flirting habits
of a man of the world, with a very u