"Get away from the Cranford spirit, Katrine; refuse to be bound by it, I see signs,--I tell you frankly, I see signs of its encroachment! Here's a fine chance of throwing it to the winds. Are you brave enough, fine enough, woman enough, to work out this thing for yourself, and to decide as your heart dictates? "I am very humble; I ask for the moment nothing more than an occasional letter. Now, what are you going to do? At any rate there's that box! In common decency you must write once at least to acknowledge that! Your answer ought, I calculate, to arrive about four weeks from to-day. "Yours faithfully, "Jim Blair." "Well, I'm--!" ejaculated Katrine, and stopped aghast. The failure to finish her sentence was attributable less to good feeling than the utter inability to find a word strong enough to express the sentiments of the moment. An onlooker, however, could not have failed to remark the fact that, be the sentiment what it might, it was certainly extraordinarily becoming. Katrine's eyes shone, her pale cheeks blazed a damask rose, the firm lips gaped, showing a flash of small, white teeth. Seated bolt upright in her high-backed chair, the blue dress outlining the fine lines of her figure, she reached at that moment her highest possibilities of beauty, but there was no one to see her, and for the moment she was oblivious of her own good looks. The world of monotonous order rocked in chaos beneath her feet; volcano-like, those written words had convulsed the landscape, transforming the familiar features into new and astounding shapes. Out of the shock and amazement it was difficult to realise the predominant sensation. Was it anger; was it excitement; was it relief that at last, at last, something had happened to lift life out of the eternal jog-trot? Katrine did not know, she did not trouble to think; for the moment it was enough to sit still, and let the whirlwind rush through her veins. Whether she were angry or glad, for the moment, at least, the latent powers of feeling were stirred into being; she was strongly, vitally, _alive_! An unknown man had accosted her with what was virtually an expression of love; had flung down the gage, and challenged her to the reply. "_For the moment_" he demanded nothing more than an intimate correspondence, with the object of gaining an opportunity to reveal his own identity, and evoking her sympathy in return...