And then he had three days in which to make up his mind. It may be a question whether three days are ever much better than three minutes for such a purpose. A man's mind will very generally refuse to make itself up until it be driven and compelled by emergency. The three days are passed not in forming but in postponing judgment. In nothing is procrastination so tempting as in thought. So it came to pass, that through the Thursday, the Friday, and the Saturday, Frank Houston came to no conclusion, though he believed that every hour of the time was devoted to forming one. Then, as he ate his dinner on Saturday night at his club, a letter was brought to him, the handwriting of which was familiar to him. This letter assisted him little in thinking. The letter was from Gertrude Tringle, and need not be given in its entirety. There was a good deal of reproach, in that he had been so fickle as to propose to abandon her at the first touch of adversity. Then she had gone on to say, that, knowing her father a great deal better than he could do, she was quite satisfied that the money would be all right. But the last paragraph of the letter shall be given. "Papa has almost yielded already. I have been very ill;"--here the extent of her malady was shown by the strength of the underscoring with which the words were made significant;--"very ill indeed," she went on to say, "as you will understand if you have ever really loved me. I have kept my bed almost ever since I got your cruel letter." Bed and cruel were again strenuously underscored. "It has made papa very unhappy, and, though he has said nothing to myself, he has told mamma that if I am really in earnest he will do something for us." The letter was long, but this is all the reader need see of it. But it must be explained that the young lady had greatly exaggerated her mother's words, and that her mother had exaggerated those which Sir Thomas had spoken. "She is a stupid idiot," Sir Thomas had said to his wife. "If she is obedient, and does her duty, of course I shall do something for her some day." This had been stretched to that promise of concession which Gertrude communicated to her lover.