e remarked: "And so you
let Miss March go away, without settling anything."

Now Lawrence considered this a very incorrect statement, but he had no
wish to set the old lady right. He knew it would joy her heart, and
make her more his friend than, ever if he should tell her that Miss
March had accepted him, but this would be a very dangerous piece of
information to put in her hands. He did not know what use she would
make of it, or what damage she might unwittingly do to his prospects.
And so he merely answered: "I had no idea she would leave so soon."

"Well," said the old lady, "I suppose, after all, that you needn't
give it up yet. I understand that she is not going to New York before
the end of the month, and you may be well enough before that to ride
over to Midbranch."

"I hope so, most assuredly," said he.

Lawrence devoted that evening to his letter. It was a long one, and
was written with a most earnest desire to embrace all the merits of
each of the two kinds of letters, which have before been alluded to,
and to avoid all their faults. When it was finished, he read it, tore
it up, and threw it in the fire.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The next day opened bright and clear, and before ten o'clock, the
thermometer had risen to seventy degrees. Instead of sitting in front
of the fireplace, Lawrence had his chair and table brought close to
his open doorway, where he could look out on the same beautiful scene
which had greeted his eyes a few days before. "But what is the good,"
he thought, "of this green grass, this sunny air, that blue sky, those
white clouds, and the distant tinted foliage, without that figure,
which a few days ago stood in the foreground of the picture?" But,
as the woman to whom, in his soul's sight, the whole world was but a
background, was not there, he turned his eyes from the warm autumnal
scene, and prepared again to write to her. He had scarcely taken up
his pen, however, when he was interrupted by the arrival of Miss
Annie, who came to bring him a book she had just finished reading, a
late English novel which she thought might be more interesting than
those she had sent him. The book was one which Lawrence had not seen
and wanted to see, but in talking about it, to the young lady, he
discovered that she had not read all of it.

"Don't let me deprive you of the book," said Lawrence. "If you have
begun it, you ought to go on with it."

"Oh, don't trouble your mind about that," she said