"Now, what we have to think of is definite and pressing. I must give a decisive answer within a week, and you will see the bearing and importance of that decisive answer on our future. I believe I could stay on here for any time I chose. The big history-book, though I work hard at it every day, is as yet only in its commencement, and I am told that when the family goes to town next week I am to accompany them, and to devote my time in London to purely secretarial work, correcting my lord in his speeches, writing his letters, etc., while the history of the Wests is to remain in abeyance until the autumn. Everybody is particularly kind to me, and had I never 'lifted my eyes to my master's daughter,' like the 'prentice of old, I might have been very happy here. But I have other hopes in view, and a married private secretary would be impossible. It's lucky, then, that there is another opening--yes, Marian, a new chance, which, I think, promises, splendidly promises, to realise all we have hoped--all I have hoped for, all you can have justly anticipated--speedy union for us both, under decent competence when united. Listen. "My old friend Byrne, of whom you heard so much when I was in London, wrote to me some time since, telling me that my name had been suggested as the correspondent then required for a London newspaper in Berlin. I thought but little of it at the moment, for though, thanks to old Dr. Breitmann, in the dear old days at Helmingham, I knew myself to be a tolerable German scholar, I doubted whether I had sufficient 'nous' and experience of the world for the post. I wrote this to Byrne, and I think he was rather of my opinion; but the man with whom the recommendation rested, and who knew me from having met me constantly during those weeks I was living with Byrne, and knew also some of my qualifications, as it was through him I obtained those odd jobs on the press, declared that I would be the very man for their purpose, and has so pressed the matter that I have agreed to let them have their answer with my decision in a week's time. For that decision I come to you. They offer me a year's engagement to start with, with the certainty of renewal if I fulfil their expectations, and four hundred a year, with the prospect of a rise. Four hundred a year, Marian, and in a country where money goes much further than in England! Four hundred a year, and we united for ever, and dear Mrs. Ashurst for, of course, she will be with us--with a son as well as a daughter to tend and care for her! Now you see why I made the commencement of my letter rather sombre and gloomy, in order to heighten the brilliancy of the finish. Now you see why I talked about the lodgings and the privations--because there is no need to submit to any of them.