If not home, this is at least my probable sphere of labour for many years to come: I shall try to take root here, and make the best of everything. The information that will reach you tomorrow, comes necessarily through Treherne. He will get it at the breakfast-table, pass it on to his wife, who will make her lively comments on it, and then it will be almost sure to go on to you. You will, in degree, understand, what they will not, why I should give up my position as regimental surgeon to establish myself here. For all else, it is of little moment what my friends think, as I am settled in my own mind--strengthened by certain good words of yours, that soft, still, autumn day, with the haze over the moorland and the sun setting in the ripples of the pool. You will have discovered by this time a fact of which, so far as I could judge, you were a week since entirely ignorant--that you have a suitor for your hand. He himself informed me of his intentions with regard to you--asking my advice and good wishes. What could I say? I will tell you, being unwilling that in the smallest degree a nature so candid and true as yours could suppose me guilty of doubledealing. I said, “that I believed you would make the best of wives to any man you loved, and that I hoped when you did marry, it would be under those circumstances. Whether he himself were that man, it rested with your suitor alone to discover and decide.” He confessed honestly that on this point he was as ignorant as myself, but declared that he should “do his best.” Which implies that while I have been occupied in this gaol business, he has had daily, hourly access to your sweet company, with every opportunity in his favour--money, youth, consent of friends,--he said you have been his mother's choice for years. With, best of all, an honest heart, which vows that, except a passing “smite” or two, it has been yours since you were children together. That such an honest heart should not have its fair chance with you, God forbid. Though I will tell you the truth; I did not believe he had any chance. Nothing in you has ever given me the slightest indication of it. Your sudden blush when you met him surprised me, also your exclamation--I was not aware you were in the habit of calling him by his Christian name. But that you love this young man, I do not believe. Some women can be persuaded into love, but you are not of that sort, so far as I can judge. Time will show. You are entirely and absolutely free.