iend ought to tell her only friend what she is going to
do, otherwise such a declaration of only-friendship means nothing. Such
was Harry Clavering's reasoning, and having so reasoned, he declared to
himself that it did mean nothing, and was very pressing to Florence
Burton to name an early day. He had been with Cecilia, he told her--he
had learned to call Mrs. Burton Cecilia in his letters--and she quite
agreed with him that their income would be enough. He was to have two
hundred a year from his father, having brought himself to abandon that
high-toned resolve which he had made some time since, that he would
never draw any part of his income from the parental coffers. His father
had again offered it, and he had accepted it. Old Mr. Burton was to add
a hundred, and Harry was of opinion that they could do very well.
Cecilia thought the same, he said, and therefore Florence surely would
not refuse. But Florence received, direct from Onslow Crescent Cecilia's
own version of her thoughts, and did refuse. It may be surmised that she
would have refused even without assistance from Cecilia, for she was a
young lady not of a fickle or changing disposition. So she wrote to
Harry with much care, and as her letter had some influence on the story
to be told, the reader shall read it--if the reader so pleases.

STRATTON, March, 186--.

DEAR HARRY: I received your letter this morning, and answer it at
once, because I know you will be impatient for an answer. You are
impatient about things--are you not? But it was a kind, sweet, dear,
generous letter, and I need not tell you now that I love the writer
of it with all my heart. I am so glad you like Cecilia. I think she
is the perfection of a woman. And Theodore is every bit as good as
Cecilia, though I know you don't think so, because you don't say so.
I am always happy when I am in Onslow Crescent. I should have been
there this Spring, only that a certain person, who chooses to think
that his claims on me are stronger than those of any other person,
wishes me to go elsewhere. Mamma wishes me to go to London also for
a week, but I don't want to be away from the old house too much
before the final parting comes at last.

And now about the final parting; for I may as well rush at it at
once. I need hardly tell you that no care for father or mother shall
make me put off my marriage. Of course I owe everything to you now