'I am taking this way of seeing you because I don't want there to be
any unpleasantness for you if you are tired of me or like some other
chap better.

'I mean to take a wife back with me, Mattie, for I have done well,
and can afford to keep one in better style than ever your father
kept his. Will you be her, dear? So no more at present from your
affectionate friend and lover,

JACK HALIBUT.'

I am quicker at reading writing than Mattie, and I had finished the
letter and was picking up the raspberries before she come to the
end, where his name was signed with all the little crosses round it.

'Well?' says I, as she folded it up and unbuttoned two buttons of
her dress to push it inside. 'Well,' says I, 'what's the best news?'

'He's come home again,' she says. And I give you my word she did
look like a rose as she said it. 'He's come home again, Jane, and
it's all right, and he likes me just as much as ever he did, God
bless him.'

Not a word, you see, about his having made his fortune, which I
might never have known if I hadn't read the letter which I did,
acting for the best. Not that I think it was deceitfulness in the
girl, but a sort of fondness that always kept her from noticing
really important things.

'And does he ask you to have him?' says I.