I got your letter on Saturday, and cannot help wishing that it had been written in better spirits. However, I do not doubt but that it will all come right soon. I am quite sure that the best thing you can do is to let Mr. Gilmore name an early day. Of course you never intended that there should be a long engagement. Such a thing, where there is no possible reason for it, must be out of the question. And it will be much better to take advantage of the fine weather than to put it off till the winter has nearly come. Fix some day in August or early in September. I am sure you will be much happier married than you are single; and he will be gratified, which is, I suppose, to count for something. I am very happy here, but yet I long to get home. At my time of life, one must always be strange among strangers. Nothing can be kinder than Sir Gregory, in his sort of fashion. Gregory Marrable, the son, is, I fear, in a bad way. He is unlike his father, and laughs at his own ailments, but everybody in the house,--except perhaps Sir Gregory,--knows that he is very ill. He never comes down at all now, but lives in two rooms, which he has together up-stairs. We go and see him every day, but he is hardly able to talk to any one. Sir Gregory never mentions the subject to me, but Mrs. Brownlow is quite confident that if anything were to happen to Gregory Marrable, Walter would be asked to come to Dunripple as the heir, and to give up the army altogether. I get on very well with Mrs. Brownlow, but of course we cannot be like old friends. Edith is a very nice girl, but rather shy. She never talks about herself, and is too silent to be questioned. I do not, however, doubt for a moment but that she will be Walter Marrable's wife. I think it likely that they are not engaged as yet, as in that case I think Mrs. Brownlow would tell me; but many things have been said which leave on my mind a conviction that it will be so. He is to be here again in August, and from the way in which Mrs. Brownlow speaks of his coming, there is no doubt that she expects it. That he paid great attention to Edith when he was here before, I am quite sure; and I take it he is only waiting till-- In writing so far, Miss Marrable had intended to signify that Captain Marrable had been slow to ask Edith Brownlow to be his wife while he was at Dunripple, because he could not bring himself so soon to show himself indifferent to his former love; but that now he would not hesitate, knowing as he would know, that his former love had bestowed herself elsewhere; but in this there would have been a grievous accusation against Mary, and she was therefore compelled to fill up her sentence in some other form;-- till things should have arranged themselves a little.