ontents of the note. Why have you such a tell-tale
face, Clive?"

"It is over; but when a man has once, you know, gone through an affair
like that," says Clive, looking very grave, "he--he's anxious to hear of
Alice Grey, and how she's getting on, you see, my good friend." And he
began to shout out as of old--

"Her heart it is another's, she--never--can--be--mine;"

and to laugh at the end of the song. "Well, well," says he; "it is a
very kind note, a very proper little note; the expression elegant, J.
J., the sentiment is most correct. All the little t's most properly
crossed, and all the little i's have dots over their little heads.
It's a sort of a prize note, don't you see; and one such, as in the
old spelling-book story, the good boy received a plum-cake for writing.
Perhaps you weren't educated on the old spelling-book, J. J.? My good
old father taught me to read out of his--I say, I think it was a shame
to keep the old boy waiting whilst I have been giving an audience to
this young lady. Dear old father!" and he apostrophised the letter. "I
beg your pardon, sir; Miss Newcome requested five minutes' conversation,
and I was obliged, from politeness, you know, to receive. There's
nothing between us; nothing but what's most correct, upon my honour and
conscience." And he kissed his father's letter, and calling out again,
"Dear old father!" proceeded to read as follows:--

"'Your letters, my dearest Clive, have been the greatest comfort to
me. I seem to hear you as I read them. I can't but think that this, the
modern and natural style, is a great progress upon the old-fashioned
manner of my day, when we used to begin to our fathers, 'Honoured
Father,' or even 'Honoured Sir' some precisians used to write still from
Mr. Lord's Academy, at Tooting, where I went before Grey Friars--though
I suspect parents were no more honoured in those days than nowadays. I
know one who had rather be trusted than honoured; and you may call me
what you please, so as you do that.

"'It is not only to me your letters give pleasure. Last week I took
yours from Baden Baden, No. 3, September 15, into Calcutta, and could
not help showing it at Government House, where I dined. Your sketch
of the old Russian Princess and her little boy, gambling, was capital.
Colonel Buckmaster, Lord Bagwig's private secretary, knew her, and says
it is to a T. And I read out to some of my young fellows what you said
about play, and how you had given it