“My own sweet Violet,--I had hoped to find a letter from you waiting for me on my arrival here; but I know very well it is not your fault that I am disappointed, even if I do not hear from you for a whole week--for I will never doubt my darling again. I have had the battle with my mother prematurely, and gained the victory. I intended, as you know, to break my resolution to her gently; but she herself hurried the _dénouement_. We broke the journey at Paris, stopping there last night. As soon as we got there, I opened my writing-case and wrote a tiny note to my darling, just to tell you how I walked up and down the deck of the steamer and sat in a railway-carriage, thinking of you and the last look I had into your beautiful loving gray eyes in the drive on Tuesday night--such a long time ago it seems! I left the room for a minute to order something to eat, with my letter closed up and directed to you on the table, ready to be enclosed to Mrs. Manners. When I came back, I found my mother there; she had torn open my letter and was reading it. Then we had a scene. I asked for my letter, and she tore it up and flung it into the fireplace, with some words about you that sent my forbearance to the winds, and I told her she was speaking about my future wife. “‘Your future wife,’ answered she, drawing herself up to her full height and rolling out her voice in a way that always reduces my father to nothingness, ‘is Miss Langham of Greytowers.’ “‘You have been misinformed, mother. In such a matter it is always best to get your information at first hand. Your future daughter-in-law is Miss Violet Christie, the most beautiful girl in Norfolk or out of it. And as for Miss Langham, if you are so bent upon having her for a daughter-in-law, and she doesn’t mind waiting, you can save her up for Jack.’ “I expected a lot more nonsense; but she was so much taken by surprise that that speech broke the back of the difficulty; and now, though she receives all my attentions frigidly and we are getting along very uncomfortably, she knows her control over her eldest son is at an end. I only wish, my darling, that my promise to my father had not prevented my telling her this while we were still in England, for I begin to fancy this journey ‘for her health’ was nothing but a trick--a plot, for there were two in it--for getting me away from you. However, I suppose I must live through the two months now somehow, as I promised her. She will keep me to that.