"MY DEAR OLD FELLOW,--There are still some points of arrangement very material to consider with regard to this Meeting next week, and I hope it is not too late to go into them. The thing cannot be done away. But the circumstances have become, thank God, very different indeed. Mr. Disraeli has asked me to speak in his stead at Hanborough--an honour so wholly unexpected and undeserved that I am forced to see in it an especial mark of encouragement. I must admit at once that I feel greatly flattered. I am not now to be taught what opinion I am to entertain of those gentlemen whose narrow and selfish principles forced me to move against my inclination, my judgment, and my convictions. I am persuaded that any additional public action--no matter how indirect on my part--in the Nomination of Temple would have at this juncture, the worse effect. It would savour of self-advertisement--an idea which I abhor. It would seem an _over-doing_, as it were, of my own importance. You will readily agree, I know, that I ought to keep perfectly quiet before, and for some time after, my Hanborough appearance. Not having in any degree changed my view upon this subject of the Association, I don't feel that my present decision is inconsistent. I think it will strike everybody as a sensible--the only sensible--course to follow. "When can you dine? Or if you won't dine, let me see you when you can spare half an hour. "Yours affectionately," "BEAUCLERK." Orange turned to Sara and said, when he had finished reading-- "I am glad he wrote." "You knew him better than I did. He is still a poor creature, for, what does it all come to?--a rambling, stupid lie. The letter is sheer rubbish--a complete misrepresentation of the facts. But I need not have come. This always happens when women interfere between men," she added, bitterly; "you don't want us. There's a freemasonry among men. You excuse and justify and forgive each other always." "You persuaded him to post this." "That is true. He might have done so, however, without persuasion. In future, call me the busybody! I must go now. I have made you late for d'Alchingen's dinner. What a lesson to those about to make themselves useful! And how right you were not to get bitter! I take things too much to heart. I must pray for flippancy. Then, perhaps, I may find no fault with this world, or with you, or with anybody!" "I am bitter enough--don't doubt it."