It is perhaps uncharitable to suppose that Miss J. intended by her assumed reluctance to grant the Duke a third interview to force him to make a formal declaration of his intentions and ask her hand in marriage. If this, however, was her plan, it met with a signal failure. Clearly nothing was farther from the Duke's thoughts than to make himself the butt of popular ridicule by taking a wife forty-five years younger than himself, and of retired even though perfectly respectable social position. Besides that, it can hardly be wondered at if the Duke, a man free from binding domestic ties, were not in a humor to place permanently at his elbow so strict a mentor as Miss J., no matter how pretty she might be. The prudishness and piety that were fascinating in a beautiful woman seldom seen, would wax wearisome in the most charming creature bound to him by indissoluble ties. CHAPTER IV. SMOOTH WATERS. LONDON, June 2, 1835. MY DEAR MISS J.,--I received your Note. We perfectly understand each other; and with your permission I will call upon you to-morrow at three o'clock. There is only one point that I wish to explain in reference to our last meeting. There might have been a difference of Manner. There was none of feeling. You told me that you had written to me; and I certainly was anxious to possess your Letters. You certainly wished to take them out of the Paquet; but if I had thought that your reluctance to give them was deeply felt, you may rely upon it that I would not have pressed to have them. At all events my perusal of them has occasioned an explanation which can do no Harm. Believe me ever Yours most sincerely W. From this it appears that the personal interviews had recommenced. The letters now follow one another closely. LONDON, June 15, 1835. MY DEAR MISS J.,--I have received your Letter of this Day, for which I return many thanks. I was not able to go to see you last week as I intended. I was confined to my Home by Indisposition for some days; and I was much occupied. I am going out of town to-morrow. But I hope to be able to go to see [_sic_] on Saturday at three o'clock if you should not at that time have left town for the Seaside? I will bring with me the Letters and Books which you lent me. I have read that one which you wish that I should return to you. If you should go before I shall see you again I hope that you will let me know where. Believe me Ever Yours most sincerely WELLINGTON. Miss J. states that the book here alluded to was an account of the conversion of the criminal Cook, and touches upon her instrumentality in bringing about this result. LONDON, June 22nd, 1835. MY DEAR MISS J.,--I have read all your Letters since I saw you on Saturday. Why do you not send each of them to me when you write it?