not your bare consent, of which I am sure,
since my happiness for life depends on it, but a
consent so gracefully worded—and who can do
this better than you?—as to gratify the just
pride and sensibilities of the high-minded family
about to confide its brightest ornament to my
care.

"My dear father, in the midst of felicity almost
more than mortal, the thought has come that
this letter is my first step towards leaving the
paternal roof under which I have been so happy
all my life, thanks to you. I should indeed be
unworthy of all your goodness if this thought
caused me no emotion.

"Yet I do but yield to Nature's universal law.
And, should I be master of my own destiny, I
will not go far from you. I have been unjust to
Barkington; or rather I have echoed, without
thought, Oxonian prejudices and affectation.
On mature reflection, I know no better residence
for a married man.

"Do you remember about a year ago you
mentioned a Miss Lucy Fountain to us as 'the most
perfect gentlewoman you had ever met?' Well,
strange to say, it is that very lady's daughter;
and I think when you see her you will say the
breed has anything but declined, in spite of
Horace and his 'damnosa quid non.' Her brother
is my dearest friend, and she is Jenny's; so a
more happy alliance for all parties was never
projected.

"Write to me by return, dear father, and
believe me

"Ever your dutiful and grateful son,

"ALFRED HARDIE."

As he concluded, Julia came in, and he insisted
on her reading this masterpiece. She hesitated.
Then he told her with juvenile severity that a
good husband always shares his letters with his
wife.

"His wife? Alfred!" and she coloured all
over. "Don't call me names," said she, turning it
off, after her fashion. "I can't bear it: it
makes me tremble. With fury."

"This will never do, sweet one," said Alfred,
gravely. "You and I are to have no separate
existence, now; you are to be I, and I am to be
you. Come!"

"No; you read me so much of it, as is proper
for me to hear. I shall not like it so well from
your lips: but never mind."

When he came to read it, he appreciated the
delicacy that had tempered her curiosity. He
did not read it all to her, but nearly.

"It is a beautiful letter," said she; "a little
pompouser than mamma and I write. 'The
Paternal Roof!!" But all that becomes you; you
are a scholar: and, dear Alfred, if I should separate
you from your papa, I will never estrange
you from him; oh, never, never. May I go for
my work? for methinks, O most erudite, the
'maternal dame,' on domestic cares intent, hath
confided to her offspring the recreation of your
highness." The gay creature dropt him a
curtsey, and fled to tell Mrs. Dodd the substance
of "the sweet letter the dear high flown Thing
had written."

By then he had folded and addressed it,
she returned and brought her work; charity
children's grey cloaks: her mother had cut them,
and in the height of the fashion, to Jane Hardie's
dismay; and Julia was trimming, hemming,
etcetering them.

How demurely she bent her lovely head over
her charitable work, while Alfred poured his tale
into her ears! How careful she was not to speak,
when there was a chance of his speaking! How
often she said one thing so as to express its
opposite, a process for which she might have
taken out a patent! How she and Alfred
compared heart-notes, and their feelings at each
stage of their passion. Their hearts put forth
tendril after tendril, and so curled, and clung,
round each other.

In the afternoon of the second blissful day,
Julia suddenly remembered that this was dull for
her mother. To have such a thought was to fly to
her; and she flew so swiftly that she caught Mrs.
Dodd in tears, and trying adroitly and vainly to
hide them.

"What is the matter? I am a wretch. I
have left you alone."

"Do not think me so peevish, love! you have
but surprised the natural regrets of a mother at
the loss of her child."

"Oh, mamma," said Julia, warmly, "and do
you think all the marriage in the world can ever
divide you and me, can make me lukewarm to my
own sweet, darling, beautiful, blessed, angel,
mother? Look at me, I am as much your Julia,
as ever; and shall be while I live. It's a son
who is a son only till he gets him a wife: but
your daughter's your daughter ALL—THE—DAYS
—OF HER LIFE"

Divine power of native eloquence; with this
trite distich you made hexameters tame; it
gushed from that great young heart with a sweet
infantine ardour, that even virtue can only pour
when young, and youth when virtuous; and, at
the words I have emphasised by the poor device
of capitals, two lovely, supple arms were
minaciously spread out like a soaring albatross's
wings, and then went all round the sad mother,
and gathered every bit of her up to the generous
young bosom.

"I know it, I know it," cried Mrs. Dodd,
kissing her; "I shall never lose my daughter,
while she breathes. But I am losing my child.
You are turning to a woman, visibly: and you
were such a happy child. Hence my migivings,
and these weak tears; which you have dried with
a word; see!" And she contrived to smile.
"And now go down, dearest: he may be
impatient; men's love is so fiery."

The next day Mrs. Dodd took Julia apart and
asked her whether there was an answer from Mr.
Hardie. Julia replied, from Alfred, that Jane
had received a letter last night, and, to judge by
the contents, Mr. Hardie must have left London