of fun.  You’d much better come down, and go a-wooing in the regular old-fashioned way.  I need not tell you that Lady Julia will be delighted to see you.  You are a prime favourite with her since that affair at the railway station.  She thinks a great deal more about that than she does about the bull.

   Now, my dear fellow, you know all about it, and I shall
   take it very much amiss of you if you don’t answer my
   letter soon.

   Your very sincere friend,

   DE GUEST.

When Eames had finished this letter, sitting at his office-desk, his surprise and elation were so great that he hardly knew where he was or what he ought to do.  Could it be the truth that Lily’s uncle had not only consented that the match should be made, but that he had also promised to give his niece a considerable fortune?  For a few minutes it seemed to Johnny as though all obstacles to his happiness were removed, and that there was no impediment between him and an amount of bliss of which he had hitherto hardly dared to dream.  Then, when he considered the earl’s munificence, he almost cried.  He found that he could not compose his mind to think, or even his hand to write.  He did not know whether it would be right in him to accept such pecuniary liberality from any living man, and almost thought that he should feel himself bound to reject the earl’s offer.  As to the squire’s money, that he knew he might accept.  All that comes in the shape of a young woman’s fortune may be taken by any man.

He would certainly answer the earl’s letter, and that at once.  He would not leave the office till he had done so.  His friend should have cause to bring no further charge against him of that kind.  And then again he reverted to the injustice which had been done to him in the matter of letter-writing—­as if that consideration were of moment in such a state of circumstances as was now existing.  But at last his thoughts brought themselves to the real question at issue.  Would Lily Dale accept him?  After all, the realisation of his good fortune depended altogether upon her feelings; and, as he remembered this, his mind misgave him sorely.  It was filled not only with a young lover’s ordinary doubts, with the fear and trembling incidental to the bashfulness of hobbledehoyhood—­but with an idea that that affair with Crosbie would still stand in his way.  He did not, perhaps, rightly understand all that Lily had suffered, but he conceived it to be probable that there had been wounds which even the last five months might not yet have cured.  Could it be that she would allow him to cure these wounds?  As he thought of this he felt almost crushed to the earth by an indomitable bashfulness and conviction of his own unworthiness.  What had he to offer worthy of the acceptance of such a girl as Lilian Dale?