His first step, after the night’s deliberation of which we have just spoken, was to write at length to Flora, to explain honestly and openly to her the situation in which circumstances had placed him. He detailed how his natural expectations had been abruptly shattered, and the stern necessity which henceforward would imperiously call upon him to supply, by the exercise of his own skill and industry, those resources with which his late uncle had so liberally and kindly intended to furnish him. He made a clean breast, and disguised nothing; but his letter was not composed in a complaining or whining spirit; and while he dwelt upon his own ardent love for her, and alluded to the tender acknowledgments she had made to him, it was rather with a view to suggest to her that the change in his condition, since her admission of attachment, left her now free to act in the future disposal of her hand and person. This, he told her, he felt to be as a matter of justice and of right simply her due; but it was, also, only fair to himself to state that he did not abrogate one hope or aspiration in which she had hitherto held the first place. He bade her be assured that he looked into the future firmly, confidently, and with unwavering faith. He asked no promise from her binding her to his future fortunes; he even said that he would think of her in no angry spirit if, after what had recently occurred to himself, she accepted the hand of one her equal in rank and wealth, however deep might be his sense of the loss he should sustain; and finally, that he should ever do his utmost to prove himself worthy of her favourable opinion, even as he should strive, by unabated self-exertion, to recover the position from which he had been so unexpectedly hurled. The letter despatched, he pursued the course he proposed for himself to follow. Personal application to the first manufacturing goldsmiths in London proved to him that his devotion to his art, and the success which always attends a well-directed perseverance, met its proper reward. In quarters where he believed himself unknown, his skill in the manipulation and the finish of his designs was almost a byeword. He was gratified beyond measure to find that hours withheld from idleness, and dedicated to his advancement, had won for him a name, as a sculptor in the precious metal, earlier in life than could have been accomplished by any other means.