“My afternoon stroll upon the Esplanade has grown into an established thing. Sixpence judiciously bestowed upon the children despatches those young abominations scurrying over the waste ground to an emporium which they call ‘the shop,’ whence they return after an interval, embrowned and sticky with the traces of ginger-bread and barley-sugar. In the meanwhile Susan and I are alone on that dreary Esplanade. What is it Byron says about youth, and solitude, and the sea? Well, that sort of thing _is_ rather a dangerous combination; and I begin to think that if I want to redeem my character at St. B., I shall be obliged to take myself and my books away from Coltonslough. ‘Breathes there the wretch with soul so dead,’ who could sit in that dingy parlour, coaching himself in the classics, while one of the prettiest girls in all the British dominions is walking up and down the Esplanade opposite his window, and thinking of him? Yes, she thinks of me, and expects me, when that yellow streak begins to glimmer in the west. I have seen her head turned towards my window; and then I pitch my friend Sophocles into the remotest corner, and go out for my afternoon stroll. “_December 10._--Yes, the dismal confession must be written, or the account between R. L. and self closed for ever. I am in love--seriously, desperately, unreasonably in love--with a young person whose social status is something between that of a parlour-maid and a nursery-governess. Could she be worse off than she is now? Could any turn in the wheel of fortune leave her in a lower place than that she now occupies? Scarcely! I don’t believe in those dismal histories which the Minerva Press was wont to disseminate. Susan is just the sort of girl to fall on her feet. Those shy, sensitive creatures always know how to take care of themselves, and often do remarkably well in life. It’s your dashing, high-spirited, strong-minded girl who goes to the bad. Goodness knows I’m not a bad-hearted fellow. I can’t look at such a girl as Susan without worrying myself about her future career. There’s scarcely any sacrifice I wouldn’t make--short of the sacrifice of my own prospects--in order to insure her welfare. Yes, the little stranger, let into my dwelling unawares, has strung his bow and twanged his arrow home to my heart. I am really in love this time. I used to feel savage with those St. B. fellows when they talked nonsense to Rosa: but I think I should annihilate the man who so much as looked at this girl. Yes; I am prepared to make any sacrifice--short of the destruction of my own prospects. Your really rich man, or your penniless beggar, can afford to make a fool of himself; but I stand just in that middle distance between the golden lands of plenty and the sterile plains of poverty, in which a man must needs be peculiarly circumspect.