What a charming girl she is, I cried, as I finished the letter; how full of true feeling, how honourably, how straight-forward: and yet it is devilish strange how cunningly she played her part--and it seems now that I never did touch her affections; Master Harry, I begin to fear you are not altogether the awful lady-killer you have been thinking. Thus did I meditate upon this singular note--my delight at being once more "free" mingling with some chagrin that I was jockied, and by a young miss of eighteen, too. Confoundedly disagreeable if the mess knew it, thought I. Per Baccho--how they would quiz upon my difficulty to break off a match, when the lady was only anxious to get rid of me. This affair must never come to their ears, or I am ruined; and now, the sooner all negociations are concluded the better. I must obtain a meeting with Emily. Acknowledge the truth and justice of all her views, express my deep regret at the issue of the affair, slily hint that I have been merely playing her own game back upon her; for it would be the devil to let her go off with the idea that she had singed me, yet never caught fire herself; so that we both shall draw stakes, and part friends. This valiant resolution taken, I wrote a very short note, begging an interview, and proceeded to make as formidable a toilet as I could for the forthcoming meeting; before I had concluded which, a verbal answer by her maid informed me, that "Miss Bingham was alone, and ready to receive me." As I took my way along the corridor, I could not help feeling that among all my singular scrapes and embarassing situations through life, my present mission was certainly not the least--the difficulty, such as it was, being considerably increased by my own confounded "amour propre," that would not leave me satisfied with obtaining my liberty, if I could not insist upon coming off scathless also. In fact, I was not content to evacuate the fortress, if I were not to march out with all the honours of war. This feeling I neither attempt to palliate nor defend, I merely chronicle it as, are too many of these confessions, a matter of truth, yet not the less a subject for sorrow. My hand was upon the lock of the door. I stopped, hesitated, and listened. I certainly heard something. Yes, it is too true--she is sobbing. What a total overthrow to all my selfish resolves, all my egotistical plans, did that slight cadence give. She was crying--her tears for the bitter pain she concluded I was suffering--mingling doubtless with sorrow for her own sources of grief--for it was clear to me that whoever may have been my favoured rival, the attachment was either unknown to, or unsanctioned by the mother. I wished I had not listened; all my determinations were completely routed and as I opened the door I felt my heart beating almost audibly against my side.