was going to be made a subject of joking, which would have been very unpleasant for Fanny.  He was very much surprised, and notwithstanding his great dislike to disparity of years, he regretted her refusal deeply.  He is a great admirer of Lord John’s, and was delighted with him when he was here.  He says that in spite of the drawbacks he is clearly of the opinion that she has made a great mistake, and hopes that it may take another turn still.  You may fancy how I am longing to talk to your Father about it.  He says in his last letter that his eyes were only just opened to Lord John’s being an old man, when he looked on him in this new light....

    MINTO, November 15, 1840

My birthday—­it frightens me to be twenty-five.  To think how days, months, and years have slipped away and how unfulfilled resolutions remain to reproach me.  Long walk with Papa—­talked to me about Lord John very kindly.  Had a long letter from Miss Lister—­tells me a good deal about him, and the more I hear the more I am forced to admire and like.  Then why am I so ungrateful?  Oh! why so obstinate?  I can only hope for the sake of my character that Dryden is right that “Love is not in our choice but in our fate.”

At the beginning of the new year the family moved up to London.  The next entry, dated from the Admiralty, expressive in its brevity, runs:  “A surprising number of visitors, one very alarming, no less than Lord John—­and I saw him.”  Then, a week later, on February 8:  “The agitation of last Monday over again....  After all, perhaps he only wished to show that he is friendly still.  It is like his kindness, but he did not look merry.”

In March she wrote to her married sister, Lady Mary Abercromby, an account of her feelings and perplexities.

    ADMIRALTY, March 16, 1841

DEAREST MARY,—­Tho’ it is not nearly my day for writing, a long letter from you to Mama, principally about myself, has determined me to do so—­and to do so this minute, while I feel that I have courage for the great effort (yes, you may laugh, but it is a terrible effort) of saying to you all that you have the best right to abuse me for not having said before.  If it was really saying, oh how happy I should be! but there is something so terribly distinct in one’s thoughts as soon as they are on paper, and I have longed each day a thousand times to have you by my side to help me to read them and to listen to all my nonsense.  I felt it utterly impossible to write them, altho’ I also felt that my silence was most unfair upon you and would have made me, in your place, either very suspicious or very angry.  It has made you suspicious, but now let it only make you angry—­as angry as you please—­for I have not changed and I do not suppose I ever shall.  When we first came to town, nothing having taken place between us since my positive refusal from Minto, except the contradiction sent by us to the report