The happiest that can befal you, was the answer, and a bond of twenty thousand pounds cancelled on your wedding-day. With these words Ap Owen left the room, whilst poor Philip, silenced but not satisfied, made no further effort to detain him. Though Mrs. Rachel De Lancaster had some grounds for expecting a proposal, she had no such plea upon the score of actual promise as could constitute a claim so peremptory as now was urged upon him; and with all the partiality he had ever felt or expressed for the widow, it may well be doubted if his dread of marriage would not in all cases have outweighed his hopes of happiness. But now, crest-fallen and spiritless, in a strange country, which he dare not quit, and conscious, that, except within the walls of his far-distant home, he had not in the world a friend, to whom he could unbosom his sorrows and appeal for succour and advice, he poignantly felt the full impression of his distressful situation. To his father he was ashamed to write; to his sister writing could not serve him; Colonel Wilson was not a man for his purpose, and there remained only his son John, whom, though he had hitherto treated as a child, he now thought proper to address by letter; and in the course of the next day, after as much meditation as his mind was capable of, he wrote as follows. “Dear son! “The circumstance of your mother’s death, communicated to me in a letter from your aunt, has involved me in a very serious difficulty, of which I lose no time to give you an account. Sir David Ap Owen, who has settled himself here for the winter, and with whom I am upon the best terms, has used very cogent means to prevail upon me to enter into contract of marriage, claiming the fulfilment of a promise, which he states that I have made to Mrs. Rachel Ap Owen his mother, when I visited her at Penruth Abbey. Now though I will not deny but that words were said by me, which she has a right to consider as extremely flattering, I do not think they can be made to bear the interpretation of an absolute promise, as insisted upon by Sir David. I protest to you, son John, I am not a man inclined to hasty measures, more especially of a matrimonial nature, being, as you know, rather studious of my repose; and of course I took some pains to satisfy the gentleman that, with all possible respect for the lady, it would suit me better to leave her in possession of her tranquillity, and continue to enjoy my own. Sir David’s answer to this was by the statement of an alternative, which was not a little embarrassing, as he left me nothing but a choice of difficulties; declaring that I must either instantly decide to keep faith with his mother, and pledge myself to marry her, or turn out with him and end the difference by the death of one of us. Now though I am not afraid of death in a natural way,