“MISS ROCHESTER:—I am considerably troubled over an interview that I have just had with my mother, and during which she stated that you feel yourself somewhat compromised by what occurred between us on the day of your leaving Paris. I sincerely regret if anything which I may have said or done should have surprised you into the betrayal of feelings which you would have preferred to conceal. I imagined that it would be a very easy matter for you to explain the situation to Mrs. Rochester; but if, under the circumstances, you feel delicate about so doing, and she is still laboring under a misapprehension of the real nature of the interview, I will make you the only reparation in my power by the offer of my hand. I will tell you frankly that I have no heart to give any woman—that the image of my dead wife still fills it to the exclusion of all other affection, and I feel that it is but a mockery to ask any one to marry me. Still if, by so doing, I can set you right in the eyes of others, I am at your service; the proposal will at least give you the opportunity of rejecting one who has, perhaps, placed you in a false position, although unintentionally. “Very truly yours, “TRUMAN H. WINTHROP.” “There! I believe this will end that matter for all time,” the young man said as he slipped the missive into its envelope and addressed it. “She can tell them all that I have proposed to her and she has rejected me, then they will surely let us both alone about this hateful marriage.” He never once imagined that the girl was as eager for it as her mother and Madame Winthrop—that she was only waiting for the slightest concession on his part to trap him into an engagement, and thus secure the prize for which she had so long angled. Therefore it was with no little amazement and consternation that he received, late the next afternoon, the following reply to his proposal: “DEAR DR. WINTHROP:—You can perhaps imagine what the feelings of a sensitive woman may have been upon receiving such a note as you wrote to me yesterday. It was not a pleasant thing to learn that your mother had told you that I felt compromised by the event which occurred, whatever my feelings may have been. But since she has told you and since you have dealt so candidly with me, I will be no less frank with you. “That I did betray feelings which almost any woman would have regretted revealing I cannot deny, and, strange though it may seem to you, my mother is the last person in the world who would regard such a betrayal with any leniency. Hence my hesitation to explain matters to her. Having once procrastinated, I have not since had the courage to broach the subject, so she has naturally inferred what Madame Winthrop intimated to you.