"Just as you please," said Sir Francis. Then Dick Ross left the room and went away to make such arrangements for his departure as were possible to him, and the readers of this story shall see him and hear him no more. Sir Francis when he was left alone took out Miss Altifiorla's letter and read it again. He was a man who could assume grand manners in his personal intercourse with women, but was peculiarly apt to receive impression from them. He loved to be flattered, and was prone to believe anything good of himself that was said to him by one of them. He therefore took the following letter for more than it was worth. MY DEAR SIR FRANCIS,--I know that you will have been quite quick enough to have understood when you received my former little scrawl what my answer would be. When a woman attempts to deceive a man in such a matter she knows beforehand that the attempt will be vain; and I certainly did not think that I could succeed with you. But yet a feeling of shamefacedness,--what some ladies consider as modesty, though it might more properly be called _mauvaise honte_,--forced me into temporary silence. What could I wish better than to be loved by such a one as you? In the first place there is the rank which goes for much with me. Then there is the money, which I admit counts for something. I would never have allowed myself to marry even if I had chanced to love a poor man. Then there are the manners, and the peculiar station before the world, which is quite separate from the rank. To me these alone are irresistible. Shall I say too that personal appearance does count for much. I can fancy myself marrying an ugly man, but I can fancy also that I could not do it without something of disgust. Miss Altifiorla when she wrote this had understood well that vanity and love of flattery were conspicuous traits in the character of her admirer. Having owned so much, what is there more to say than that I am the happiest woman between the seas? The reader must be here told that this letter had been copied out a second time because in the first copy she had allowed the word girl to pass in the above sentence. Something told her that she had better write woman instead, and she had written it.