been
false, of having given one reason for refusing Mr. Gibson, while
there was another reason in her heart,--of having been cunning and
then untrue, was not to be endured. What would her aunt think of her
if she were to bear such allegations without indignant protest? She
would write her letter, and speak her mind to her aunt as soon as her
aunt should be well enough to hear it.

As she had resolved, she wrote her letter that night before she went
to bed. She wrote it with floods of tears, and a bitterness of heart
which almost conquered her. She too had heard of love, and had been
taught to feel that the success or failure of a woman's life depended
upon that,--whether she did, or whether she did not, by such gifts
as God might have given to her, attract to herself some man strong
enough, and good enough, and loving enough to make straight for her
her paths, to bear for her her burdens, to be the father of her
children, the staff on which she might lean, and the wall against
which she might grow, feeling the sunshine, and sheltered from the
wind. She had ever estimated her own value so lowly as to have told
herself often that such success could never come in her way. From her
earliest years she had regarded herself as outside the pale within
which such joys are to be found. She had so strictly taught herself
to look forward to a blank existence, that she had learned to do so
without active misery. But not the less did she know where happiness
lay; and when the good thing came almost within her reach, when it
seemed that God had given her gifts which might have sufficed, when
a man had sought her hand whose nature was such that she could have
leaned on him with a true worship, could have grown against him as
against a wall with perfect confidence, could have lain with her head
upon his bosom, and have felt that of all spots that in the world was
the most fitting for her,--when this was all but grasped, and must
yet be abandoned, there came upon her spirit an agony so bitter
that she had not before known how great might be the depth of human
disappointment. But the letter was at last written, and when finished
was as follows:--

The Close, Exeter, March 1, 186--.

DEAR BROOKE,

There had been many doubts about this; but at last they were
conquered, and the name was written.

I have shown your letter to my aunt, as I am sure you will
think was best. I should have answered it before, only
tha