been dead to him these many years,
alive to him again as of old, was in itself a pleasant, gratifying thing.
Ned had grown so resigned to, or satisfied with, his lonely lot, that he
probably would not have shown much jubilation at anything. Still, a
certain ardour of preoccupation, after his first surprise, revealed how
deeply her confession of faith in him had stirred him. Measured and
methodical in his ways, he did not answer the letter that day, nor the
next, nor the next. He was having 'a good think.' When he did answer
it, there was a great deal of sound reasoning mixed in with the
unmistakable tenderness of his reply; but the tenderness itself was
sufficient to reveal that he was pleased with her straightforward
frankness; that the anchorage she had once obtained in his heart was
renewable, if it had not been continuously firm.

He told her--and as he wrote his lips twitched humorously over the few
gentle words of raillery he indited among the rest of his sentences--that
it was all very well for her to come round at this time of day. Why
wouldn't she have him when he wanted her? She had no doubt learned that
he was not married, but suppose his affections had since been fixed on
another? She ought to beg his pardon. Still, he was not the man to
forget her. But considering how he had been used, and what he had
suffered, she could not quite expect him to go down to Stickleford and
fetch her. But if she would come to him, and say she was sorry, as was
only fair; why, yes, he would marry her, knowing what a good little woman
she was at the core. He added that the request for her to come to him
was a less one to make than it would have been when he first left
Stickleford, or even a few months ago; for the new railway into South
Wessex was now open, and there had just begun to be run wonderfully
contrived special trains, called excursion-trains, on account of the
Great Exhibition; so that she could come up easily alone.

She said in her reply how good it was of him to treat her so generously,
after her hot and cold treatment of him; that though she felt frightened
at the magnitude of the journey, and was never as yet in a railway-train,
having only seen one pass at a distance, she embraced his offer with all
her heart; and would, indeed, own to him how sorry she was, and beg his
pardon, and try to be a good wife always, and make up for lost time.

The remaining details of when and where were soon settled, Car