Dearest, dearest, _dearest_ Joan--The first thing you have thoroughly to realise is that it doesn't matter _what_ you say or what mother says or what any one says. Mother's angry. Of course she is. She's been angry a thousand million times before and will be a thousand million times again. But it doesn't _mean_ anything. Mother likes to be angry, it does her good, and the longer she's angry with you the better she'll like you, if you understand what I mean. What I want to get into your head is that you can't alter anything. Of course if you didn't love me it would be another matter, and you tried to tell me you didn't love me yesterday just for my good, but you did it so badly that you had to admit yourself that it was a failure. Don't talk about your brother; he's a fine fellow, and I'm going to look him up when I'm in London next month. Don't talk about not seeing me, because you can't help seeing me if I'm right in front of you. I'm no silph. (The way he spelt it.) I'm quite ready to wait for a certain time anyway. But marry we will, and happy we'll be for ever and ever!--Your adoring JOHNNY. And what was she to do about it? She was certainly very unmodern and inexperienced by the standards of to-day--on the other hand, she was a very long way indeed from the Lily Dales and Eleanor Hardings of Mr. Trollope. She had not told her father--that she was resolved to do so soon as he seemed a little less worried by his affairs; but say that she did not love Johnny she had found that she could not, and as to damaging him by marrying him, his love for her had strengthened her own pride in herself. She did not understand his love, it was astounding to her after the indifference with which her own family had always treated her. But there it was: he, with all his experience of life, loved her more than any one else in the world, so there _must_ be something in her. And she knew there was; privately she had always known it. As to his mother--well, so long as Johnny loved her she could face anybody. So this wonderful morning she was radiantly happy. Child as she was, she adored this excitement. It was splendid of it to be this glorious time just when she was having her own glorious time! Splendid of the weather to be so beautiful, of the bells to clash, of every one to wear their best clothes, of the Jubilee to arrange itself so exactly at the right moment! And could it be only last Saturday that he had spoken to her? And it seemed centuries, centuries ago!