'I shall never forget the pained and melancholy expression of his features when I did so, or the few words he uttered. He said that he had not ventured to hope for a different answer, though he had dared to speak, and that his one slight prospect of happiness had vanished. He had now nothing but a life of labour before him, without a gleam of hope to cheer his way, but that he should think of me always, and of the happy hours we had passed together. I felt so sorry for him that I could really say nothing, either to cheer or discourage him. He simply asked me to allow him to remain my friend, and to forgive his presumption; and so we shook hands and parted. He did not join the family that evening, and the next day I left the Merryweathers. 'I do not know how it was, but when I returned home, I thought more of this young man than of any one else. Although my sister and myself were surrounded by men of a very different, and I may say, superior class, still he haunted me very much, for a time at least. 'Then came my sister's marriage, which proved, as you know, unfortunate in a pecuniary point of view, and her and her husband's emigration to Australia in search of fortune. Then followed our own ruin, and my father's paralytic seizure. To help my parents and support myself, I came to you as governess. You know, dearest Freda, how happy your dear mother made me as long as she lived, and how ardently I desired to fulfil her dying wish that I should finish your education. Most thankful I am that I was permitted to do so. 'I need not tell you, over and over again, the sad story of my mother's death, and my return home to live with my father, and become a daily instead of a resident governess. All the happiness I have known--at least the greatest--since our troubles, has been in this house. 'But this has nothing to do with Mr Jones. I heard, casually from my friend, Mrs Merryweather, that he had left them and gone to college; what college, she did not say. For some years I had quite enough of painful duty to perform to make me forget the weeks passed in his society, and their termination; or to think of a person of whom I had quite lost sight. About six or seven years ago, however, I heard of him, strange to say, through my sister. I had, of course, told her of his proposal and my refusal.