“I hope and believe it can.  My advice is this:  Don’t take No for an answer.  Give her time enough to reflect on what she has done, and to regret it (as I believe she will regret it) in secret; trust to my influence over her to plead your cause for you at every opportunity I can find; wait patiently for the right moment, and ask her again.  Men, being accustomed to act on reflection themselves, are a great deal too apt to believe that women act on reflection, too.  Women do nothing of the sort.  They act on impulse; and, in nine cases out of ten, they are heartily sorry for it afterward.

“In the meanwhile, you must help your own interests by inducing your uncle to alter his opinion, or at least to make the concession of keeping his opinion to himself.  Mrs. Tyrrel has rushed to the conclusion that the harm he has done he did intentionally—­which is as much as to say, in so many words, that he had a prophetic conviction, when he came into the house, of what she would do when he left it.  My explanation of the matter is a much simpler one.  I believe that the knowledge of your attachment naturally aroused his curiosity to see the object of it, and that Mrs. Tyrrel’s injudicious praises of Norah irritated his objections into openly declaring themselves.  Anyway, your course lies equally plain before you.  Use your influence over your uncle to persuade him into setting matters right again; trust my settled resolution to see Norah your wife before six months more are over our heads; and believe me, your friend and well-wisher,

“HARRIET GARTH.”

IV.

From Mrs. Drake to George Bartram.

“St. Crux, April 17th.

“SIR—­I direct these lines to the hotel you usually stay at in London, hoping that you may return soon enough from foreign parts to receive my letter without delay.

“I am sorry to say that some unpleasant events have taken place at St. Crux since you left it, and that my honored master, the admiral, is far from enjoying his usual good health.  On both these accounts, I venture to write to you on my own responsibility, for I think your presence is needed in the house.

“Early in the month a most regrettable circumstance took place.  Our new parlor-maid was discovered by Mr. Mazey, at a late hour of the night (with her master’ s basket of keys in her possession), prying into the private documents kept in the east library.  The girl removed herself from the house the next morning before we were any of us astir, and she has not been heard of since.  This event has annoyed and alarmed my master very seriously; and to make matters worse, on the day when the girl’s treacherous conduct was discovered, the admiral was seized with the first symptoms of a severe inflammatory cold.  He was not himself aware, nor was any one else, how he had caught the chill.  The doctor was sent for, and kept the inflammation down until the day before yesterday, when it broke out again, under circumstances which I am sure you will be sorry to hear, as I am truly sorry to write of them.