arramore, and that he had cheered you. I do so wish I
could have come, but I have really been quite ill, and I must not think
of risking a journey till the weather improves. Don't trouble about it;
I will write often."

"I told you about a letter I had had from poor Patty, and I want to ask
you to do something. Will you write to her? Just a nice, friendly
little letter. She would be so delighted, she would indeed. There's no
harm in copying a line or two from what she sent me. 'Has Mr. Hilliard
forgotten all about me?' she says. 'I would write to him, but I feel
afraid. Not afraid of _you_, dear Eve, but he might feel I was
impertinent. What do you think? We had such delicious times together,
he and you and I, and I really don't want him to forget me altogether?'
Now I have told her that there is no fear whatever of your forgetting
her, and that we often speak of her. I begin to think that I have been
unjust to Patty in calling her silly, and making fun of her. She was
anything but foolish in breaking off with that absurd Mr. Dally, and I
can see now that she will never give a thought to him again. What I
fear is that the poor girl will never find any one good enough for her.
The men she meets are very vulgar, and vulgar Patty is _not_--as you
once said to me, you remember. So, if you can spare a minute, write her
a few lines, to show that you still think of her. Her address is----,
etc."

To Hilliard all this seemed merely a pleasant proof of Eve's
amiability, of her freedom from that acrid monopolism which
characterises the ignoble female in her love relations. Straightway he
did as he was requested, and penned to Miss Ringrose a chatty epistle,
with which she could not but be satisfied. A day or two brought him an
answer. Patty's handwriting lacked distinction, and in the matter of
orthography she was not beyond reproach, but her letter chirped with a
prettily expressed gratitude. "I am living with my aunt, and am likely
to for a long time. And I get on very well at my new shop, which I have
no wish to leave." This was her only allusion to the shattered
matrimonial project: "I wish there was any chance of you and Eve coming
to live in London, but I suppose that's too good to hope for. We don't
get many things as we wish them in this world. And yet I oughtn't to
say that either, for if it hadn't been for you I should never have seen
Paris, which was so awfully jolly! But you'll be coming for a holiday,
won't you? I