_Monday, 31st_.--A letter from Aunt Morse. Very dry and cold. Asks if I have sufficiently recovered from my late attack to be able to resume habits of activity and industry? Why, she knows well enough I have nothing to engage my activity and industry, for I will not be a coal-heaver, let uncle say what he likes. Aunt surmises that possibly some tender sentiment may be at the bottom of my attachment to Ireland, and sternly recalls me to the fact that I am not the possessor of landed property and an ancient family mansion in a good county. What can she mean by these warnings? Was it not herself that I overheard asking my uncle, “Would not he do for Lizzy?” How false women are! I wish I could probe that secret about the man that behaved ill; there are so many ways to behave ill, and to be behaved ill by. Shall I put a bold face on it, and ask Lizzy? Great news has the post brought. Sir Morris Stamer is going out Lord High Commissioner to the Ionian Islands, and offers to take me as private sec. It is a brilliant position, and one to marry on. I shall ask Lizzy to-day. Wednesday, all settled;--but what have I not gone through these last three days! She loves me to distraction; but she 'll tell nothing,--nothing till we 're married. She says, and with truth, “confidence is the nurse of love.” I wish she was n't so coy. I have not even kissed her hand. She says Irish girls are all coy. We are to run away, and be married at a place called Articlane. I don't know why we run away; but this is another secret I 'm to hear later on. Quiet and demure as she looks, Lizzy has a very decided disposition. She overbears all opposition, and has a peremptory way of saying, “Don't be a fool, G.!”--she won't call me Paul, only G.,--“and just do as I bade you.” I hope she 'll explain why this is so,--after our marriage. I'm getting terribly afraid of the step we're about to take. I feel quite sure it was the Rev. Dan who shot the Papist on that anniversary affair; and I know he'd shoot me if he thought I had wronged him. Is there any way out of this embarrassment?