lover to be almost as brave as he--the feminine of him. With these ideas
in her head much clearer than when she wrote the couple of lines to
Alvan--for then her head was reeling, she was then beaten and prostrate--
she signed her name to a second renunciation of him, and was aware of a
flush of self-reproach at the simple suspicion of his being deceived by
it; it was an insult to his understanding. Full surely the professor
would not be deceived, and a lover with a heart to reach to her and read
her could never be hoodwinked by so palpable a piece of slavishness. She
was indeed slavish; the apology necessitated the confession. But that
promise of courage, coming of her ownership of sense, vindicated her
prospectively; she had so little of it that she embraced it as a present
possession, and she made it Alvan's task to put it to the trial. Hence
it became Alvan's offence if, owing to his absence, she could be charged
with behaving badly. Her generosity pardoned him his inexplicable delay
to appear in his might: 'But see what your continued delay causes!' she
said, and her tone was merely sorrowful.

She had forgotten her signature to the letter to the professor when his
answer arrived. The sight of the handwriting of one of her lover's
faithfullest friends was like a peal of bells to her, and she tore the
letter open, and began to blink and spell at a strange language, taking
the frosty sentences piecemeal. He begged her to be firm in her
resolution, give up Alvan and obey her parents! This man of high
intelligence and cultivation wrote like a provincial schoolmistress
moralizing. Though he knew the depth of her passion for Alvan, and had
within the month received her lark-song of her betrothal, he, this man--
if living man he could be thought--counselled her to endeavour to deserve
the love and respect of her parents, alluded to Alvan's age and her
better birth, approved her resolve to consult the wishes of her family,
and in fine was as rank a traitor to friendship as any chronicled. Out