Rachel's
letter ran as follows:

MY DEAR FRANK,

I am afraid I must trouble you once again with my affairs;
though, indeed, after what last took place between us it
ought not to be necessary. Lord Castlewell has proposed
to make me his wife; and, to tell you the truth, looking
forward into the world, I do not wish to throw over all
its pleasures because your honour, whom I have loved, does
not wish to accept the wages of a singing girl. But the
place is open to you still,--the wages, and the singing
girl, and all. Write me a line, and say how it is to be.

Yours as you would have me to be,

RACHEL O'MAHONY.

This letter Frank Jones showed to no one. Had he allowed it to be
seen by his sister Edith, she would probably have told him that no
man ever received a sweeter love-letter from the girl whom he loved.
"The place is open to you still,--the wages, the singing girl, and
all." The girl had made nothing of this new and noble lover, except
to assure his rival that he, the rival, should be postponed to him,
the lover, if he, the lover, would write but one word to say that it
should be so. But Frank was bad at reading such words. He got it into
his head that the girl had merely written to ask the permission of
her former suitor to marry this new lordly lover, and, though he did
love the girl, with a passion which the girl could never feel for the
lord, he wrote back and refused the offer.

MY DEAR RACHEL,

It is, I suppose, best as it is. We are sinking lower and
lower daily. My father is beginning to feel that we shall
never see another rent day at Castle Morony. It is not
fitting that I should think of joining my fallen fortunes
to yours, which are soaring so high. And poor Florian is
gone. We are at the present moment still struck to the
ground because of Florian. As for you, and the lord who
admires you, you have my permission to become his wife. I
have long heard that he is your declared admirer. You have
before you a glorious future, and I shall always hear with
satisfaction of your career.

Yours, with many memories of the past,

FRANCIS JONES.

It was not a letter which would have put such a girl as Rachel
O'Mahony into good heart unless she had in truth wished to get his
agreement to her lordly marriage. "This twice I have thrown myself at
his head and he has rejected me." Then she abided Lord Castlewell's
comin