erself very often; but nevertheless was it absolutely
necessary that the other should be abandoned altogether? Would it not
be well at any rate to wait till this trial should be over? But then
the young men themselves were in such a hurry!

Lucius, like an honest man, had proposed to go at once to Mr.
Furnival when he was accepted; but to this Sophia had objected, "The
peculiar position in which my father stands to your mother at the
present moment," said she, "would make it very difficult for him
to give you an answer now." Lucius did not quite understand the
reasoning, but he yielded. It did not occur to him for a moment that
either Mr. or Miss Furnival could doubt the validity of his title to
the Orley Farm property.

But there was no reason why he should not write to her. "Shall I
address here?" he had asked. "Oh yes," said Sophia; "my letters are
quite private." And he had written very frequently, and she had
answered him. His last letter before the trial I propose to publish,
together with Sophia's answer, giving it as my opinion that the
gentleman's production affords by no means a good type of a lover's
letter. But then his circumstances were peculiar. Miss Furnival's
answer was, I think, much better.

Orley Farm, ---- ---- ----.

MY OWN SOPHIA,

My only comfort--I may really say my only comfort now--is
in writing to you. It is odd that at my age, and having
begun the world early as I did, I should now find myself
so much alone. Were it not for you, I should have no
friend. I cannot describe to you the sadness of this
house, nor the wretched state in which my mother exists. I
sometimes think that had she been really guilty of those
monstrous crimes which people lay to her charge, she could
hardly have been more miserable. I do not understand it;
nor can I understand why your father has surrounded her
with lawyers whom he would not himself trust in a case of
any moment. To me she never speaks on the subject, which
makes the matter worse--worse for both of us. I see her
at breakfast and at dinner, and sometimes sit with her
for an hour in the evening; but even then we have no
conversation. The end of it is I trust soon coming, and
then I hope that the sun will again be bright. In these
days it seems as though there were a cloud over the whole
earth.

I wish with all my heart that you could have been here
with her. I think that your t