Well, give me no more occasions to complain of you, you know not what may follow.  Here was Mr. Freeman yesterday that made me a very kind visit, and said so many fine things to me, that I was confounded with his civilities, and had nothing to say for myself.  I could have wished then that he had considered me less and my niece more; but if you continue to use me thus, in earnest, I’ll not be so much her friend hereafter.  Methinks I see you laugh at all my threatenings; and not without reason.  Mr. Freeman, you believe, is designed for somebody that deserves him better.  I think so too, and am not sorry for it; and you have reason to believe I never can be other than

Your faithful friend.

CHAPTER IV

DESPONDENCY.  CHRISTMAS 1653

This chapter of letters is a sad note, sounding out from among its fellows with mournful clearness.  There had seemed a doubt whether all these letters must be regarded as of one series, or whether, more correctly, it was to be assumed that Dorothy and Temple had their lovers’ quarrels, for the well-understood pleasure of kissing friends again.  But you will agree that these lovers were not altogether as other lovers are, that their troubles were too real and too many for their love to need the stimulus of constant April shower quarrels; and these letters are very serious in their sadness, imprinting themselves in the mind after constant reading as landmarks clearly defining the course and progress of an unusual event in these lovers’ history—­a misunderstanding.

The letters are written at Christmastide, 1653.  Dorothy had returned from London to Chicksands, and either had not seen Temple or he had left London hurriedly whilst she was there.  There is a letter lost.  Dorothy’s youngest brother is lately dead; her niece has left her; her companion Jane is sick; her father, growing daily weaker and weaker, was sinking into his grave before her eyes.  No bright chance seemed to open before her, and their marriage seemed an impossibility.  For a moment she loses faith, not in Temple, but in fortune; faith once gone, hope, missing her comrade, flies away in search of her.  She is alone in the old house with her dying father, and with her brother pouring his unkind gossip into her unwilling ear, whilst the sad long year draws slowly to its close, and there is no sign of better fortune for the lovers; can we wonder, then, that Dorothy, lonely and unaided, pacing in the damp garden beneath the bare trees, with all the bright summer changed into decay, lost faith and hope?