e nature of which I am
thoroughly ignorant, but which could, I suppose, be
achieved in a month. I would advise you to ask your aunt
boldly whether she wishes you to go or to stay with her,
explaining, of course, that you intend to hold to your
engagement, and explaining at the same time that you are
quite ready to be married at once if she is anxious to be
quit of you. That is my advice.

And now, dear, one word of something softer! For did any
lover ever write to the lady of his heart so long a letter
so abominably stuffed with matters of business? How shall
I best tell you how dearly I love you? Perhaps I may do it
by showing you that as far as I myself am concerned I long
to hear that your Aunt Emmeline and your Uncle Tom are
more hard-hearted and obdurate than were ever uncle and
aunt before them. I long to hear that you have been turned
out into the cold, because I know that then you must come
to me, though it be even less than three hundred a-year.
I wish you could have seen your uncle's face as those
terribly mean figures reached his ears. I do not for a
moment fear that we should want. Orders come slow enough,
but they come a little quicker than they did. I have never
for a moment doubted my own ultimate success, and if
you were with me I should be more confident than ever.
Nevertheless, should your aunt bid you to stay, and should
you think it right to comply with her desire, I will not
complain.

Adieu! This comes from one who is altogether happy in his
confidence that at any rate before long you will have
become his wife.

ISADORE HAMEL.

I quite expect to be scolded for my awkwardness. Indeed I
shall be disappointed if I am not.

The same post which brought Hamel's long letter to Lucy brought also
a short but very angry scrawl from Sir Thomas to his wife. No eyes
but those of Lady Tringle saw this epistle, and no other eyes shall
see it. But the few words which it contained were full of marital
wrath. Why had she threatened to turn her own niece out of his doors?
Why had she subjected him to the necessity of defending her by a
false assertion? Those Dormer nieces of hers were giving him an
amount of trouble and annoyance which he certainly had not deserved.
Lucy, though not a word was said to her of this angry letter, was
conscious that something had been added to her aunt's acerbity.
Indeed, for the