er mother's tears and told her, very
truly, how much she had always and would always love her, she hurried
upstairs to her writing-desk with quite a new sensation of life being a
most vital and palpitating thing. Her days had been all terribly
alike: this was so different and thrilling!

The only thing was--how did one begin?

She wished she had asked Mother. She couldn't very well go down and
ask her now. Besides, she might just change her mind.

"Mr." looked so stiff like that; yet she did not like, quite, to call
him Hubert yet.

She gave a little laugh of excitement. What fun it all was! She
wondered if other people felt like this, when they were getting
married. They probably knew all about it?

Oh yes, of course; she'd go by his letter....

But no; because when _he_ wrote they were not engaged!

So finally she thought it best to leave a blank and start straight off--

"I really don't know at all what I ought to say. I am no good at
letters and this is very difficult, but I too enjoyed all our walks and
things, and if you really want to marry me I don't see why we shouldn't
be engaged. I liked you very much down here and hope I shall make you
happy. Mother doesn't seem very keen about it, I think she thinks I am
too young though I am twenty, but she has given her consent and will, I
am sure, come round to it, so don't worry.

"I'm afraid you'll think this letter very stupid, but you know how
ashamed I always was of my ignorance. I seem to know nothing! It is
very nice indeed of any one like you to care for me.

"Yours,
"HELENA HALLAM.

"P.S.--You won't be able to tease me any more about my name,
afterwards!"

Perhaps to any real anthologist or expert of love-letters this would
seem but little better than the attempt it answered; yet if success
must be judged by results, it cannot have been much amiss, since for
the first time in his life Hubert Brett was melted to a display of
ridiculous emotion. "Dear little girl!" he murmured aloud and kissed
the last words before her signature.

As for Helena, having run out to the village and posted the letter
unread by her mother--a cause of yet further misgiving to the
theorist--she began to wonder ever so little whether she had done quite
wisely.

From somewhere (who can say whence, since some things are inborn in
Man?) she had got the notion, possibly ridiculous, that courting and
proposals were quite different from this. Even in the Li