Anne’s heart was in her mouth as she read the letter. She did not take time to think about it, nor how it came there, nor of any unsuitableness in the way it reached her. It was to ask how they were to correspond, whether he was to be permitted to write to her. ‘I cannot think why we did not settle this before I left,’ Cosmo said; ‘I suppose the going away looked so like dying that nothing beyond it, except coming back again, seemed any alleviation.’ But this object of the letter did not strike Anne at first. She was unconscious of everything except the letter itself, and those words which she had never seen on paper in handwriting before. She had read something like it in books. Nothing but books could be the parallel of what was happening to her. ‘My dear and only love,’ that was in a poem somewhere Anne was certain, but Cosmo did not quote it out of any poem. It was the natural language; that was how she was to be addressed now, like Juliet. She had come to that state and dignity all at once, in a moment, without any doing of hers. She stood alone, unseen, behind the great tuft of bushes, while the curate kept watch lest anyone should come to disturb her, and all the old people sat round unseen, chatting and eating ices, while the young ones fluttered about the lawns. Nobody suspected with what a sudden, intense, and wondering perception of all the emotions she had fallen heir to, she stood under the shadow of the rhododendrons reading her letter; and nobody knew with what a sore but faithful heart the curate stood, turning his back to her, and protected her seclusion. It was a scene that was laughable, comical, pathetic, but pathetic more than all. This incident coloured the whole scene to Anne, and gave it its character. She had almost forgotten the very existence of the old Princess when she went back. ‘Bring me that girl,’ the old lady said, in her excellent English, ‘bring me back that girl. She is the one I prefer. All the others they are demoiselles, but this is a woman.’ But when Anne was brought back at last the keen old lady saw the difference at once. ‘Something has happened,’ she said; ‘what has happened, my all-beautiful? someone has been making you a proposal of marriage. That comes of your English customs which you approve so much. To me it is intolerable; imagine a man having the permission in society to startle this child with an _emotion_ like that.’ She pronounced _emotion_ and all similar words as if they had been in the French language. Anne protested vainly that no such emotion had fallen to her share. Mr. Greenwood agreed with the Princess, though he did not express himself so frankly. Could it be the curate? he thought, elevating his eyebrows. He was a man of experience, and knew how the most unlikely being is sometimes gifted to produce such an emotion in the fairest bosom. CHAPTER IX. COSMO.