he
did nothing. For three weeks he neither answered the letter nor went
near her, nor gave her any token that he was thinking about her.

Then came a note from Miss Baker, asking him to come to Littlebath.
It was good-humoured, playful, almost witty; too much so for Miss
Baker's unassisted epistle-craft, and he at once saw that Caroline
had dictated it. Her heart at any rate was light. He answered it
by one equally good-humoured and playful, and perhaps more witty,
addressed of course to Miss Baker, in which he excused himself at
present in consequence of the multiplicity of his town engagements.
It was June, and he could not get away without making himself guilty
of all manner of perjuries; but in August he would certainly take
Littlebath on his way to Scotland.

He had intended that every light word should be a dagger in
Caroline's bosom; but there was not a pin's prick in the whole of
it. Sullen grief on his part would have hurt her. And it would have
hurt her had he taken her at her word and annulled their engagement;
for she had begun to find that she loved him more than she had
thought possible. She had talked in her prudence, and written in her
prudence, of giving him up; but when the time came in which she might
expect a letter from him, saying that so it should be, her heart did
tremble at the postman's knock; she did feel that she had something
to fear. But his joyous, clever, laughing answer to her aunt was all
that she could wish. Though she loved him, she could wait; though she
loved him, she did not wish him to be sad when he was away from her.
She had reason and measure in her love; but it was love, as she began
to find--almost to her own astonishment.

George had alluded not untruly to his own engagements. On the day
after he received Caroline's letter he shut up Coke upon Lyttleton
for that term, and shook the dust off his feet on the threshold of
Mr. Die's chambers. Why should he work? why sit there filling his
brain with cobwebs, pouring over old fusty rules couched in obscure
language, and useful only for assisting mankind to cheat each other?
He had had an object; but that was gone. He had wished to prove to
one heart, to one soul, that, young as he was, poor as he was, she
need not fear to trust herself to his guardianship. Despite his musty
toils, she did fear. Therefore, he would have no more of them. No
more of them at any rate then, while the sun was shining so brightly.
So he went down to