not strength left me to make my heart whole enough to be worthy of
your acceptance. I have been so cut and scotched and lopped by the
sufferings which I have endured that I am best alone. It cannot all
be described;--and yet with you I would have no reticence. I would
put the whole history before you to read, with all my troubles past
and still present, all my hopes, and all my fears,--with every
circumstance as it has passed by and every expectation that
remains, were it not that the poor tale would be too long for your
patience. The result of it would be to make you feel that I am no
longer fit to enter in upon a new home. I should bring showers
instead of sunshine, melancholy in lieu of mirth.

I will, however, be bold enough to assure you that could I bring
myself to be the wife of any man I would now become your wife. But
I shall never marry again.

Nevertheless, I am your most affectionate friend,

MATILDA CARBURY.

About six o'clock in the afternoon she sent this letter to Mr Broune's
rooms in Pall Mall East, and then sat for awhile alone,--full of
regrets. She had thrown away from her a firm footing which would
certainly have served her for her whole life. Even at this moment she
was in debt,--and did not know how to pay her debts without mortgaging
her life income. She longed for some staff on which she could lean.
She was afraid of the future. When she would sit with her paper before
her, preparing her future work for the press, copying a bit here and a
bit there, inventing historical details, dovetailing her chronicle,
her head would sometimes seem to be going round as she remembered the
unpaid baker, and her son's horses, and his unmeaning dissipation, and
all her doubts about the marriage. As regarded herself, Mr Broune
would have made her secure,--but that now was all over. Poor woman! This
at any rate may be said for her,--that had she accepted the man her
regrets would have been as deep.

Mr Broune's feelings were more decided in their tone than those of the
lady. He had not made his offer without consideration, and yet from
the very moment in which it had been made he repented it. That gently
sarcastic appellation by which Lady Carbury had described him to
herself when he had kissed her best explained that side of Mr Broune's
character which showed itself in this matter. He was a susceptible old
goose. Had she allowed him to kiss her without objectio