I don’t know much about the Aylmers.  I know nothing of what has made you quarrel with the people at Aylmer Park nor do I want to know.  To me you are once more that Clara Amedroz with whom I used to walk in Belton Park, with your hand free to be given wherever your heart can go with it.  While it is free I shall always ask for it.  I know that it is in many ways above my reach.  I quite understand that in education and habits of thinking you are my superior.  But nobody can love you better than I do.  I sometimes fancy that nobody could ever love you so well.  Mary thinks that I ought to allow a time to go by before I say all this again but what is the use of keeping it back?  It seems to me to be more honest to tell you at once that the only thing in the world for which I care one straw is that you should be my wife.

Your most affectionate Cousin,

‘William Belton.’

‘Miss Belton is coming here, to the castle, in a fortnight,’ said Clara that morning at breakfast.  Both Colonel Askerton and his wife were in the room, and she was addressing herself chiefly to the former.

‘Indeed, Miss Belton!  And is he coming?’ said Colonel Askerton.

‘So you have heard from Plaistow?’ said Mrs Askerton.

’Yes in answer to your letter.  No, Colonel Askerton, my Cousin William is not coming.  But his sister purposes to be here, and I must go up to the house and get it ready.’

‘That will do when the time comes,’ said Mrs Askerton.

‘I did not mean quite immediately.’

’And are you to be her guest, or is she to be yours? said Colonel Askerton.

’It’s her brother’s home, and therefore I suppose I must be hers.  Indeed it must be so, as I have no means of entertaining any one,’

‘Something, no doubt, will be settled,’ said the colonel.

‘Oh, what a weary word that is,’ said Clara; ’weary, at least, for a woman’s ears!  It sounds of poverty and dependence, and endless trouble given to others, and all the miseries of female dependence.  If I were a young man I should be allowed to settle for myself.’

‘There would be no question about the property in that case,’ said the colonel.

‘And there need be no question now,’ said Mrs Askerton.

When the two women were alone together, Clara, of course, scolded her friend for having written to Norfolk without letting it be known that she was doing so scolded her, and declared how vain it was for her to make useless efforts for an unattainable end; but Mrs Askerton always managed to slip out of these reproaches, neither asserting herself to be right, nor owning herself to be wrong.  ’But you must answer his letter,’ she said.

‘Of course I shall do that.’

‘I wish I knew what he said.’

‘I shan’t show it you, if you mean that.’

‘All the same I wish I knew what he said.’