verty on my own behalf; and--though I don't
know whether you will forgive me for this--I feel less
compunction in asking you to be poor with me. Do not
imagine from this that I feel confident as to your answer.
I am very far from that. But I know that you used to love
me as a friend--and I now venture to ask you to love me as
my wife.

Dearest Adela! I feel that I may call you so now, even
if I am never to call you so again. If you will share
the world with me, I will give you whatever love can
give--though I can give but little more. I need not tell
you how we should be circumstanced. My mother must have
three hundred and fifty pounds out of the living as long
as she lives; and should I survive her, I must, of course,
maintain the girls. But I mean to explain to my mother
that she had better live elsewhere. There will be trouble
about this; but I am sure that it is right. I shall tell
her of this letter to-morrow. I think she knows what my
intention is, though I have not exactly told it to her.

I need not say how anxious I shall be till I hear from
you. I shall not expect a letter till Thursday morning;
but, if possible, do let me have it then. Should it be
favourable--though I do not allow myself to have any
confidence--but should it be favourable, I shall be at
Littlebath on Monday evening. Believe me, that I love you
dearly.

Yours, dear Adela,

ARTHUR WILKINSON.

Aunt Penelope was a lady addicted to very early habits, and
consequently she and Adela had usually left the breakfast-table
before the postman had visited them. From this it resulted that Adela
received her letter by herself. The first words told her what it
contained, and her eyes immediately became suffused with tears. After
all, then, her patience was to be rewarded. But it had not been
patience so much as love; love that admitted of no change; love on
which absence had had no effect; love which had existed without any
hope; which had been acknowledged by herself, and acknowledged as a
sad misfortune. But now--. She took the letter up, but she could not
read it. She turned it over, and at the end, through her tears, she
saw those words--"Believe me, that I love you dearly." They were
not like the burning words, the sweet violent protestations of a
passionate lover. But coming from him, they were enough. At last she
was to be rewarded.

And then at length she