“I won’t promise that,” I replied, quite appreciating the little rebuff that was implied in her remark. “She may make up her mind not to forgive me, and I should be sorry to depend upon her caprice in order to write to you.” At this moment the carriage drove up, and I had no opportunity for saying more; which was perhaps fortunate, as I might have committed myself. “Mind you come and see us again soon,” my uncle said to me as we rattled towards the station. “We shall remain here for the next two months; after that we may, perhaps, go to Scotland for a short time. Come to us, if only for a night. You may depend upon a hearty welcome.” It was four o’clock when I arrived at Updown. How was it that, on alighting on the platform, my heart didn’t throb wildly at the prospect of seeing Conny? How was it that, instead of my heart throbbing wildly, I found myself thinking, with a positive feeling of regret, of the girl I had left behind me? Had anybody asked me which I would rather do: go to Grove End or return to Thistlewood, how would I have answered? Don’t call me heartless. Suppress your sneers. Do people in this world never mistake their feelings? are our impulses always right? do we never find they have directed us the wrong road? Let the secure despise: they are in so small a minority as to be contemptible. The many are with me. Yes, there _are_ men who, having fallen in love, have never had reason to suppose they made a mistake. But how many millions have blundered into spooning with the wrong creatures? For six revolving moons, Sempronius dallied and adored: Clorinda was his goddess, and a hundred poems distributed among the magazines may, by the diligent explorer, be found to survive his error. But even whilst the seventh moon was a mere line in the heavens--as delicate a curve, my dear, as your eyebrow--Sempronius the base met Sacharissa the sweet. Hey, presto, pass! cried the Magician we all know. Sempronius’ heart sped with miraculous speed from the white bosom of Clorinda to the whiter bosom of Sacharissa. There it still is--there it will probably remain. Sempronius the base is engaged to Sacharissa, and Clorinda sailed for India last week along with her husband, Major O’Ulysses. No hearts were broken, no tears were shed--no eyes became bloodshot--no hair was torn out by the roots; the fact being, that heaven in its mercy hath qualified humanity with a marvellous power of forgetting its mistakes, and of accommodating itself to the first new condition events impose. I walked to my lodgings and there found a long letter from my father. It was all about my uncle’s scheme, Tom had written a full account of his fine idea for making my fortune, and on receipt of it, down had sat my father, to urge me, as I respected myself, to fall in with Tom’s views, marry Theresa, and become a partner in two senses.