when barbarously made public in hideous law courts by
brazen-browed lawyers with mercenary tongues. In this way only had
he written, and each of these sweet silly songs of love had been as
full of honey as words could make it. But he had never yet written to
her, on a full sheet of paper, a sensible positive letter containing
thoughts and facts, as men do write to women and women also to men,
when the lollypops and candied sugar-drops of early love have passed
away. Now he was to write his first serious letter to her,--and
probably his last,--and it was with difficulty that he could get
himself over the first three words; but there they were decided on at
last.

My dearest Clara,

Before you get this your mother will have told you
all that which I could not bring myself to speak out
yesterday, as long as you were in the room. I am sure you
will understand now why I begged you to go away, and will
not think the worse of me for doing so. You now know the
whole truth, and I am sure that you will feel for us all
here.

Having thought a good deal upon the matter, chiefly during
my walk home from Desmond Court, and indeed since I
have been at home, I have come to the resolution that
everything between us must be over. It would be unmanly
in me to wish to ruin you because I myself am ruined. Our
engagement was, of course, made on the presumption that
I should inherit my father's estate; as it is I shall
not do so, and therefore I beg that you will regard that
engagement as at an end. Of my own love for you I will say
nothing. But I know that you have loved me truly, and that
all this, therefore, will cause you great grief. It is
better, however, that it should be so, than that I should
seek to hold you to a promise which was made under such
different circumstances.

You will, of course, show this letter to your mother. She,
at any rate, will approve of what I am now doing; and so
will you when you allow yourself to consider it calmly.

We have not known each other so long that there is much
for us to give back to each other. If you do not think it
wrong I should like still to keep that lock of your hair,
to remind me of my first love--and, as I think, my only
one. And you, I hope, will not be afraid to have near you
the one little present that I made you.

And now, dearest Clara, good-bye. Let us always think,
each