It was the usual Hampton budget of uninteresting details about the doings of that little community, and Henry read it in his usual perfunctory way, scarce recollecting the people whose names were recalled by it. "Who on earth is old Gatepost? I believe she means old John Crew, the farm bailiff. I'm surprised he is only dying now. Thought he would have been dead long ago." Often his thoughts would run thus over some bit of news from Dora. She seemed to write from out the past. "Hoping you are well, as we all are when this leaves. No more at present, from your loving Sis." The phrase might have been stereotyped; it was Dora's one form of "drawing to a close." Indeed, she did not draw thither; she simply closed according to formula when she had spun her loose threads of news into some semblance of a web of words. Dora's letter was presently keeping Edgar's company, with many another tattered envelope and note, in Henry's pocket. He turned to the third of the letters with no apparent zest. "She writes a neat hand after all," he murmured, as he scanned the superscription. A bad sign that. A man in love should be the last person to ask for an opinion of the handwriting of his sweetheart. When he can speak with deliberation on the subject or think of it with detachment, he has become critical, and the end--happy or otherwise--is not far off. Happy only if there is still time or courage to draw back. "She writes a neat hand after all," said Henry, as he rammed his finger into the flap of the scented envelope and burst it open. "After all!" These even more than the words preceding them were suggestive. The hour was late, and who knows but that may, to some extent, have been responsible for the blinking mood in which the young man read his sweetheart's letter? It was the typical feminine scrawl, chiefly chatter about society doings in Laysford. "Oh, I'm becoming quite a giddy girl, dearest, and me engaged. It's too awful. Just fancy, I've been to three functions--_three_! Poor me that used to go nowhere at all. The Mellises' garden party was a very swell affair. I was there because I teach the daughter the pianoforte--and a silly thing she is. But--_don't_ be angry now, Hal--who do you think took me to the Mayor's reception? Why, that terrible goose, Mr. Trentham, the Mayor's secretary. You remember him? Short, stout, fair moustache, but _always_ well dressed. Fancies himself, _rather_. He has asked me to go with him to another reception, when some sort of conference comes to Laysford. I don't know what it is, but the receptions are all right. Lots of fun and the best of everything. Perhaps you wouldn't like me to go, dearest? But really you needn't be _jealous_. Trentham is _really_ a goose. Only one is so dull, and then _everybody_ knows I'm engaged."