from burying it, they only kept it warm. In the mean time, however, the
correspondence was not so regular as before--and perhaps the expressions
on both sides not quite so tender; for it is impossible for a man in the
Clarendon, with a carriage at the door to carry him down to Ascot, to
write about flames and arrows, which come so naturally when musing on
the Cam or Isis. And in the midst of this London career--during all
which, he assured me, he liked her better than ever--he was startled by
hearing that Mr Elstree was very ill. He hurried down to Leicestershire,
but found he was too late. The good man had died, after having learned
from his daughter the secret of her engagement, and having refused his
consent to it, not on the ground that he was too good a match for
Alice--which would be almost as vulgar a reason as if he had been too
poor--but on the ground that he was young, giddy, thoughtless, and the
wasting health and wan cheek of his daughter had told him that he was
fickle too. People in the country make so little allowance for young men
during their first season in town; and mother and daughter, in spite of
all his protestations, in spite of all the vows he made to Alice, which
she believed in her heart--were firm in breaking off the connexion, and
would see him no more. And this resolution seemed to be formed on the
maturest deliberation, and in spite of every inducement to the contrary
they kept it. He had not seen them for nearly a year. Their income, at
all times small, had been annihilated by the father's death; they left
the white-walled villa, and after bidding him farewell for ever in a
letter, and thanking him for his friendship to her father, and some few
tender recollections on her own account, Alice had begged him to forget
her! And Frank thought of her, of course, every hour of his life--tried
every means to find out where they had gone, that he might resume his
suit, and to offer them the fortune of which he had now come into full
possession--but all in vain. His friend, Mr Percy Marvale, had
undertaken to find them out within six months if they were still on the