one and strength of mind
would have enabled her to bear up against these troubles
with more fortitude. After all, it is but the shadow of
a misfortune which has come across her, if she would but
allow herself so to think. As it is, Mrs. Orme is with
her daily, and nothing I am sure can be more kind. But I
can confess to you, though I could do so to no one else,
that I do not willingly see an intimacy kept up between
my mother and The Cleeve. Why was there that strange
proposition as to her marriage; and why, when it was once
made, was it abandoned? I know that my mother has been
not only guiltless, but guileless, in these matters as to
which she is accused; but nevertheless her affairs will
have been so managed that it will be almost impossible for
her to remain in this neighbourhood.

When all this is over, I think I shall sell this place.
What is there to bind me,--to bind me or you to Orley
Farm? Sometimes I have thought that I could be happy here,
devoting myself to agriculture,--

"Fiddlesticks!" Sophia exclaimed, as she read this,--

and doing something to lessen the dense ignorance of those
around me; but for such work as that a man should be able
to extend himself over a larger surface than that which I
can influence. My dream of happiness now carries me away
from this to other countries,--to the sunny south. Could
you be happy there? A friend of mine whom I well knew in
Germany, has a villa on the Lake of Como,--

"Indeed, sir, I'll do no such thing," said Sophia to herself,--

and there I think we might forget all this annoyance.

I shall not write again now till the trial is over. I have
made up my mind that I will be in court during the whole
proceedings. If my mother will admit it, I will remain
there close to her, as her son should do in such an
emergency. If she will not have this, still I will be
there. No one shall say that I am afraid to see my mother
in any position to which fortune can bring her, or that I
have ever doubted her innocence.

God bless you, my own one.

Yours,

L. M.

Taking this letter as a whole perhaps we may say that there was not
as much nonsense in it as young gentlemen generally put into their
love-letters to young ladies; but I am inclined to think that it
would have been a better love-letter had there been more nonsense. At
any rate there sho