“If I could only forget the past, dearest mother, or think it nothing but a dream, I 'd never quarrel with the life I am now leading; for I have plenty of open air, mountain walking, abundance of time to myself, and rough fellows to deal with, that amuse me; but when I am tramping along with my cigar in my mouth, I can't help thinking of long ago,--of the rides at sunset on the sands, and all the hopes and fancies I used to bring home with me, after them. Well! it is over now,--just as much done for as if the time had never been at all; and I suppose, after a while, I 'll learn to bear it better, and think, as you often told me, that 'all things are for the best.' “I feel my own condition more painfully when I come, back here, and have to sit a whole evening listening to Sam M'Gruder talking about Dolly Stewart and the plans about their marriage. The poor fellow is so full of it all that even the important intelligence I have for him he won't hear, but will say, 'Another time, Tony, another time,--let us chat about Dolly.' One thing I 'll swear to, she 'll have the honestest fellow for her husband that ever stepped, and tell her I said so. Sam would take it very kindly of you if you could get Dolly to agree to their being married in March. “It is the only time he can manage a trip to England,--not but, as he says, whatever time Dolly consents to shall be his time. “He shows me her letters sometimes, and though he is half wild with delight at them, I tell you frankly, mother, they would n't satisfy _me_ if I was her lover. She writes more like a creature that was resigned to a hard lot, than one that was about to marry a man she loved. Sam, however, does n't seem to take this view of her, and so much the better. “There was one thing in your last letter that puzzled me, and puzzles me still. Why did Dolly ask if I was likely to remain here? The way you put it makes me think that she was deferring the marriage till such time as I was gone. If I really believed this to be the case, I'd go away tomorrow, though I don't know well where to, or what for, but it is hard to understand, since I always thought that Dolly liked me, as certainly I ever did, and still do, _her_. “Try and clear up this for me in your next. I suppose it was by way of what is called 'sparing me,' you said nothing of the Lyles in your last, but I saw in the 'Morning Post' all about the departure for the Continent, intending to reside some years in Italy. “And that is more than I 'd do if I owned Lyle Abbey, and had eighteen blood-horses in my stable, and a clipper cutter in the Bay of Curryglass. I suppose the truth is, people never do know when they're well off.”