"It is Saturday afternoon, and I have come home from the meadows before the rest, to tell you something that has made me very uneasy. If I had told anybody in the world who pulled me off the wall, it should and would have been you,--that night after it happened: and I am afraid I should have told you, if you had not prevented it: for I find I am not to be trusted when I am talking with anybody I love very much. I have not told yet: but I should have told Dale if Holt had not run up at the very moment. It makes me very unhappy,--almost as much as if I had let it out: for how do I know but that I may tell a hundred times over in my life, if I could forget so soon? I shall be afraid of loving anybody very much, and talking with them alone, as long as I live. I never felt the least afraid of telling till to-day; and you cannot think how unhappy it makes me. And then, the thing that provoked me to tell was that boy's being surly to me, and glad that I was in disgrace this morning, for doing my lessons badly all this week,--the very thing that should have made me particularly careful how I behaved to him: for his pulling me off the wall was only accident, after all. Everything has gone wrong to-day; and I am very unhappy, and I feel as if I should never be sure of anything again; and so I write to you. You told me you expected me not to fail; and you see I have; and the next thing is that I must tell you of it. "Your affectionate son, "Hugh Proctor. "PS. Phil has been very kind about my lessons, till this week [_interlined_], when he has been very busy. "PS. If you should answer this, please put `private' outside, or at the top; and then Mr Tooke will not read it, nor anybody. But I know you are very busy always; so I do not quite expect an answer."