Downing Street, September 10th Sir,--I have received instructions from Sir Francis Deighton, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, to acknowledge your letter of the 9th instant; and while expressing his regret that he has not at this moment any post in his department which he could offer for your acceptance, to state that Her Majesty's Secretary for Foreign Affairs will consent to appoint you consul at Cattaro, full details of which post, duties, salary, &c, will be communicated to you in the official despatch from the Foreign Office. Sir Francis Deighton is most happy to have been the means through which the son of an old friend has been introduced into the service of the Crown. I have the honor to be, sir, Your obedient Servant, Grey Egerton D'Eyncourt, Private Secretary. “What will he say now, Gusty?” said she, triumphantly. “He will probably say, 'What 's it worth?' Nelly. 'How much is the income?'” “I suppose he will. I take it he will measure a friend's good feeling towards us by the scale of an official salary, as if two or three hundred a year more or less could affect the gratitude we must feel towards a real patron.” A slight twinge of pain seemed to move Bramleigh's mouth; but he grew calm in a moment, and merely said, “We must wait till we hear more.” “But your mind is at ease, Gusty? Tell me that your anxieties are all allayed?” cried she, eagerly. “Yes; in so far that I have got something,--that I have not met a cold refusal.” “Oh, don't take it that way,” broke she in, looking at him with a half-reproachful expression. “Do not, I beseech you, let Mr. Cutbill's spirit influence you. Be hopeful and trustful, as you always were.” “I 'll try,” said he, passing his arm round her, and smiling affectionately at her. “I hope he has gone, Gusty. I do hope we shall not see him again. He is so terribly hard in his judgments, so merciless in the way he sentences people who merely think differently from himself. After hearing him talk for an hour or so, I always go away with the thought that if the world be only half as bad as he says it is, it's little worth living in.” “Well, he will go to-morrow, or Thursday at farthest; and I won't pretend I shall regret him. He is occasionally too candid.” “His candor is simply rudeness; frankness is very well for a friend, but he was never in the position to use this freedom. Only think of what he said to me yesterday: he said that as it was not unlikely I should have to turn governess or companion, the first thing I should do would be to change my name. 'They,' he remarked,--but I don't well know whom he exactly meant,--'they don't like broken-down gentlefolk. They suspect them of this, that, and the other;' and he suggested I should call myself Miss Cutbill. Did you ever hear impertinence equal to that?” “But it may have been kindly intentioned, Nelly. I have no doubt he meant to do a good-natured thing.”