Stratton, March, 186—.

Dear harry:  I received your letter this morning, and answer it at once, because I know you will be impatient for an answer.  You are impatient about things—­are you not?  But it was a kind, sweet, dear, generous letter, and I need not tell you now that I love the writer of it with all my heart.  I am so glad you like Cecilia.  I think she is the perfection of a woman.  And Theodore is every bit as good as Cecilia, though I know you don’t think so, because you don’t say so.  I am always happy when I am in Onslow Crescent.  I should have been there this Spring, only that a certain person, who chooses to think that his claims on me are stronger than those of any other person, wishes me to go elsewhere.  Mamma wishes me to go to London also for a week, but I don’t want to be away from the old house too much before the final parting comes at last.

And now about the final parting; for I may as well rush at it at once.  I need hardly tell you that no care for father or mother shall make me put off my marriage.  Of course I owe everything to you now; and as they have approved it, I have no right to think of them in opposition to you.  And you must not suppose that they ask me to stay.  On the contrary, mamma is always telling me that early marriages are best.  She has sent all the birds out of the nest but one; and is impatient to see that one fly away, that she may be sure that there is no lame one in the brood.  You must not therefore think that it is mamma; nor is it papa, as regards himself—­though papa agrees with me in thinking that we ought to wait a little.

Dear Harry, you must not be angry, but I am sure that we ought to wait.  We are, both of us, young, and why should we be in a hurry?  I know what you will say, and of course I love you the more because you love me so well; but I fancy that I can be quite happy if I can see you two or three times in the year, and hear from you constantly.

It is so good of you to write such nice letters, and the longer they are the better I like them.  Whatever you put in them, I like them to be full.  I know I can’t write nice letters myself, and it makes me unhappy.  Unless I have got something special to say, I am dumb.

But now I have something special to say.  In spite of all that you tell me about Cecilia, I do not think it would do for us to venture upon marrying yet.  I know that you are willing to sacrifice everything, but I ought not on that account to accept a sacrifice.  I could not bear to see you poor and uncomfortable; and we should be very poor in London now-a-days with such an income as we should have.  If we were going to live here at Stratton, perhaps we might manage; but I feel sure that it would be imprudent in London.  You ought not to be angry with me for saying this, for I am quite as anxious to be with you as you can possibly be to be with me; only, I can bear