your name should not pass my lips. I was amused by the artful
attempts she made, at the start, to break through my reticence.
Then a silence fell upon her; and then she became suddenly gay.
That keenness which I enjoyed so much when it was exercised on the
lieutenant was not so satisfactory directed against myself. Miss
Daw has great sweetness of disposition, but she can be
disagreeable. She is like the young lady in the rhyme, with the
curl on her forehead,

"When she is good,
She is very, very good,
And when she is bad, she is horrid!"

I kept to my resolution, however; but on the return home I
relented, and talked of your mare! Miss Daw is going to try a side-
saddle on Margot some morning. The animal is a trifle too light for
my weight. By the bye, I nearly forgot to say that Miss Daw sat for
a picture yesterday to a Rivermouth artist. If the negative turns
out well, I am to have a copy. So our ends will be accomplished
without crime. I wish, though, I could send you the ivorytype in
the drawing-room; it is cleverly colored, and would give you an
idea of her hair and eyes, which of course the other will not.

No, Jack, the spray of mignonette did not come from me. A man of
twenty-eight doesn't enclose flowers in his letters--to another
man. But don't attach too much significance to the circumstance.
She gives sprays of mignonette to the rector, sprays to the
lieutenant. She has even given a rose from her bosom to your slave.
It is her jocund nature to scatter flowers, like Spring.