tell me the truth.

I will not say that I shall think well of you, if you have
been carried away by this young man's nobility. I would
have you give me a fair chance. Ask yourself what has
brought him as a lover to your feet. How it came to pass
that I was your lover you cannot but remember. But, for
you, it is your first duty not to marry a man unless you
love him. If you go to him because he can make you a
countess you will be vile indeed. If you go to him because
you find that he is in truth dearer to you than I am,
because you prefer his arm to mine, because he has wound
himself into your heart of hearts,--I shall think your
heart indeed hardly worth the having; but according to
your lights you will be doing right. In that case you
shall have no further word from me to trouble you.

But I desire that I may have an answer to this in your own
handwriting.

Your own sincere lover,

DANIEL THWAITE.

In composing and copying and recopying this letter the tailor sat up
half the night, and then very early in the morning he himself carried
it to Keppel Street, thus adding nearly three miles to his usual walk
to Wigmore Street. The servant at the lodging-house was not up, and
could hardly be made to rise by the modest appeals which Daniel made
to the bell; but at last the delivery was effected, and the forlorn
lover hurried back to his work.

The Countess as she sat at breakfast read the letter over and over
again, and could not bring herself to decide whether it was right
that it should be given to her daughter. She had not yet seen Lady
Anna since she had sent the poor offender away from the house in
anger, and had more than once repeated her assurance through Mrs.
Bluestone that she would not do so till a promise had been given
that the tailor should be repudiated. Should she make this letter
an excuse for going to the house in Bedford Square, and of seeing
her child, towards whom her very bowels were yearning? At this time,
though she was a countess, with the prospect of great wealth, her
condition was not enviable. From morning to night she was alone,
unless when she would sit for an hour in Mr. Goffe's office, or on
the rarer occasions of a visit to the chambers of Serjeant Bluestone.
She had no acquaintances in London whatever. She knew that she
was unfitted for London society even if it should be open to her.
She had spent her life in struggling with