“MY DEAR MISS MAYFIELD,--If you could know the time I have wasted since Thursday week, in the vain endeavour to obtain a glimpse of your face, between the sheets of music and coloured lithographs in your father’s window, you would be more inclined to believe what I told you on that day. I told you that, if I did not see you, I should write, and I told you where I should address my letter. You forbade me to write, and assured me that my letter would lie at the post-office unasked for. But you, who are so sweet and gentle, could hardly adhere to such a cruel resolve. I dare to hope that this will reach your hands, and that you will forgive me for having disobeyed you. “I do so much wish to see you again--if only once more--yes, even if only once. I am haunted day and night by the vision of that sweet face which I first saw bending over one of my own books. Do you remember that day?--only three weeks ago; and yet it seems to me as if a new existence began for me upon that day, and as if I were older by half a lifetime since then. Sweet tender face, with the dark eyes and wild-rose bloom, shall I ever learn to forget it? Will it ever cease to come between me and my books? I was trying to read a grand old tragedy last night: but you would not let me. You were Electra, and I saw you bending over your brother’s funereal urn, as I had seen you bending over the silly volume which you praised so sweetly. The Greek tragedy reminded me of that doctrine of fatality which we laugh at in these modern days. And yet surely Destiny has her hand in the fashion of our lives. I had been writing letters on the day on which I first saw you, and the people here had given me such wretched pens and paper that I sallied out to seek better for myself. If they had given me decent writing materials, I might never have seen you. There are three other places in the town at which I might have sought what I wanted; but Destiny laid her hand on my coat-collar, and conducted me to your father’s library. I went in quietly, with all my thoughts two hundred miles away from Bayham. I saw you sitting behind the counter, with a book in your lap; and all my thoughts came back to Bayham, to take up their abode with you for ever. You were so absorbed in your book, that you did not hear my modest request for a quire of letter-paper, until it had been three times enunciated; and I meanwhile had time to read the title of the book which interested you. I suppose every writer can read the title of his _own_ book upside-down. You looked up at last, with such a pretty, shy, innocent look, and the wild-rose bloom came into your cheeks. And then I asked you what you thought of the book; and you praised it with such bewitching eloquence, and wondered who the writer could be. I had heard the book lauded by a great many people, and abused by more; but I had never until that moment felt the smallest temptation to reveal myself as the author of it. I