the house I do
like; but as to other people, I can hardly find a companion
among them, let alone a friend. However, it would not have
done for me to have broken away from all such alliance too
suddenly.

When I get up to London--and now I really am anxious to get
there--I can write to you more at my ease, and more freely
than I do here. I know that I am hardly myself among these
people,--or rather, I am hardly myself as you know me, and
as I hope you always will know me. But, nevertheless, I am
not so overcome by the miasma but what I can tell you how
truly I love you. Even though my spirit should be here,
which it is not, my heart would be on the Allington lawns.
That dear lawn and that dear bridge!

Give my kind love to Bell and your mother. I feel already
that I might almost say my mother. And Lily, my darling,
write to me at once. I expect your letters to me to be
longer, and better, and brighter than mine to you. But I
will endeavour to make mine nicer when I get back to town.

God bless you. Yours, with all my heart,

A. C.

As he waxed warm with his writing he had forced himself to be
affectionate, and, as he flattered himself, frank and candid.
Nevertheless, he was partly conscious that he was preparing for
himself a mode of escape in those allusions of his to his own
worldliness; if escape should ultimately be necessary. "I have
tried," he would then say; "I have struggled honestly, with my best
efforts for success; but I am not good enough for such success." I do
not intend to say that he wrote with a premeditated intention of thus
using his words; but as he wrote them he could not keep himself from
reflecting that they might be used in that way.

He read his letter over, felt satisfied with it, and resolved that
he might now free his mind from that consideration for the next
forty-eight hours. Whatever might be his sins he had done his duty by
Lily! And with this comfortable reflection he deposited his letter in
the Courcy Castle letter-box.

CHAPTER XIX

The Squire Makes a Visit to the Small House

Mrs Dale acknowledged to herself that she had not much ground for
hoping that she should ever find in Crosbie's house much personal
happiness for her future life. She did not dislike Mr Crosbie, nor in
any great degree mistrust him; but she had seen enough of him to make
her certain that Lily's future home in London could not be a