I was inflexible; I wouldn't let one of the Morgans into my house. Miss Letitia wrote a letter of four pages, and Miss Sophia enclosed a sonnet. Nothing would do. I resolved to keep Martha all to myself; and, for fear of other adventures in the bower, I gave her positive orders not to leave the house. I set people to watch her. I threatened to hang her Ayah with my own hands, and showed her the very bough of the tree I would do it on, if Martha was allowed to speak to any body but myself. I resolved to marry her in a week; and, merely to prevent her being harassed by the Morgans in the interval, I took all these precautions. After that, I determined to pardon the whole family, and had even prepared a letter asking them all to dinner on our wedding-day. Martha did not seem inconsolable. Day after day passed away; and, to show how easy I was in my mind, I went on with the last chapter of my novel, leaving all the middle part to be filled up at my leisure. One morning--it was last Wednesday--I went into the study, and had just taken pen in hand, when I recollected that that was the very day I had summoned all the labourers on the estate to resist the approach of the levellers and engineers of a disgusting railway that was determined to force itself right through my garden and close under the dining-room windows. I went out to the barn--all the men were there. I gave orders to them to warn the intruders off; if they resisted, to knock them down without ceremony and keep them in custody till I could get them before a magistrate. Having satisfied my mind on these points, I felt so sure of my object being gained in both respects--that is, Martha and the railway--that I dispatched my letter to old Morgan, inviting the whole family to dine with me on Friday, the day I had fixed on for the marriage. Martha sat by my side in the study, and went on with the everlasting Ottoman square. I read to her-- "'Is it in the circle of possible events--is it a contingency to be calculated on in the decrees of fate,' exclaimed Theodore Fitzhedingham--(this was the finest bit out of my last chapter)--'that the girl I have loved--the paragon I have worshipped--the angel I have adored, is, indeed no longer the humbly born maid I thought her but the descendant of princes--the kinswoman of emperors--the inheritrix of kings?' "'It certainly is far from false, nay, it is absolutely true,' returned Maria Valentine de Courcy, with a condescending smile, 'that I am not the person you have taken me for, but oh! beloved Theodore--faithful Fitzhedingham, need I tell you that my love is unaltered, my affections are unabated, my heart unchanged'"----