“I am happy because I love him.  I have always loved him.  You have known that.”

“Indeed, no.”

“But I have, after my fashion.  I am not tumultuous, as he calls himself.  Since he began to make eyes at me when he was nineteen—­”

“Fancy Oswald making eyes!”

“Oh, he did, and mouths too.  But from the beginning, when I was a child, I have known that he was dangerous, and I have thought that he would pass on and forget me after a while.  And I could have lived without him.  Nay, there have been moments when I thought I could learn to love some one else.”

“Poor Phineas, for instance.”

“We will mention no names.  Mr. Appledom, perhaps, more likely.  He has been my most constant lover, and then he would be so safe!  Your brother, Laura, is dangerous.  He is like the bad ice in the parks where they stick up the poles.  He has had a pole stuck upon him ever since he was a boy.”

“Yes;—­give a dog a bad name and hang him.”

“Remember that I do not love him a bit the less on that account;—­perhaps the better.  A sense of danger does not make me unhappy, though the threatened evil may be fatal.  I have entered myself for my forlorn hope, and I mean to stick to it.  Now I must go and write to his worship.  Only think,—­I never wrote a love-letter yet!”

Nothing more shall be said about Miss Effingham’s first love-letter, which was, no doubt, creditable to her head and heart; but there were two other letters sent by the same post from Loughlinter which shall be submitted to the reader, as they will assist the telling of the story.  One was from Lady Laura Kennedy to her friend Phineas Finn, and the other from Violet to her aunt, Lady Baldock.  No letter was written to Lord Brentford, as it was thought desirable that he should receive the first intimation of what had been done from his son.

Respecting the letter to Phineas, which shall be first given, Lady Laura thought it right to say a word to her husband.  He had been of course told of the engagement, and had replied that he could have wished that the arrangement could have been made elsewhere than at his house, knowing as he did that Lady Baldock would not approve of it.  To this Lady Laura had made no reply, and Mr. Kennedy had condescended to congratulate the bride-elect.  When Lady Laura’s letter to Phineas was completed she took care to put it into the letter-box in the presence of her husband.  “I have written to Mr. Finn,” she said, “to tell him of this marriage.”

“Why was it necessary that he should be told?”

“I think it was due to him,—­from certain circumstances.”

“I wonder whether there was any truth in what everybody was saying about their fighting a duel?” asked Mr. Kennedy.  His wife made no answer, and then he continued—­“You told me of your own knowledge that it was untrue.”

“Not of my own knowledge, Robert.”