When that note was written, he placed it likewise before me, and I read it also through.  It simply referred him to Lady Knollys ’for an explanation of the unhappy circumstances which compelled him to decline an invitation which it would have made his niece and his daughter so happy to accept.’

‘You see, my dear Maud, how frank I am with you,’ he said, waving the open note, which I had just read, slightly before he folded it.  ’I think I may ask you to reciprocate my candour.’

Dismissed from this interview, I ran to Milly, who burst into tears from sheer disappointment, so we wept and wailed together.  But in my grief I think there was more reason.

I sat down to the dismal task of writing to my dear Lady Knollys.  I implored her to make her peace with my uncle.  I told her how frank he had been with me, and how he had shown me his sad reply to her letter.  I told her of the interview to which he had himself invited me with Dr. Bryerly; how little disturbed he was by the accusation—­no sign of guilt; quite the contrary, perfect confidence.  I implored of her to think the best, and remembering my isolation, to accomplish a reconciliation with Uncle Silas.  ‘Only think,’ I wrote, ’I only nineteen, and two years of solitude before me.  What a separation!’ No broken merchant ever signed the schedule of his bankruptcy with a heavier heart than did I this letter.

The griefs of youth are like the wounds of the gods—­there is an ichor which heals the scars from which it flows:  and thus Milly and I consoled ourselves, and next day enjoyed our ramble, our talk and readings, with a wonderful resignation to the inevitable.

Milly and I stood in the relation of Lord Duberly to Doctor Pangloss.  I was to mend her ‘cackleology,’ and the occupation amused us both.  I think at the bottom of our submission to destiny lurked a hope that Uncle Silas, the inexorable, would relent, or that Cousin Monica, that siren, would win and melt him to her purpose.

Whatever comfort, however, I derived from the absence of Dudley was not to be of very long duration; for one morning, as I was amusing myself alone, with a piece of worsted work, thinking, and just at that moment not unpleasantly, of many things, my cousin Dudley entered the room.

‘Back again, like a bad halfpenny, ye see.  And how a’ ye bin ever since, lass?  Purely, I warrant, be your looks.  I’m jolly glad to see ye, I am; no cattle going like ye, Maud.’

‘I think I must ask you to let go my hand, as I can’t continue my work,’ I said, very stiffly, hoping to chill his enthusiasm a little.

’Anything to pleasure ye, Maud, ’tain’t in my heart to refuse ye nout.  I a’bin to Wolverhampton, lass—­jolly row there—­and run over to Leamington; a’most broke my neck, faith, wi’ a borrowed horse arter the dogs; ye would na care, Maud, if I broke my neck, would ye?  Well, ‘appen, jest a little,’ he good-naturedly supplied, as I was silent.