self and my character
and name to your future kindness,--or unkindness,--without
any attempt to win the former or to decry the latter; but
you have been to me ever so good and noble that I cannot
bring myself to be so cold and short. I have always felt
that your preference for me has been a great honour to
me. I have appreciated your esteem most highly, and have
valued your approbation more than I have been able to say.
If it could be possible that I should in future have your
friendship, I should value it more than that of any other
person. God bless you, Mr. Gilmore. I shall always hope
that you may be happy, and I shall hear with delight any
tidings which may seem to show that you are so.

Pray believe that I am
Your most sincere friend,

MARY LOWTHER.

I have thought it best to tell Janet Fenwick what I have
done.

Loring, Thursday.

DEAREST JANET,

I wonder what you will say to my news? But you must not
scold me. Pray do not scold me. It could never, never have
been as you wanted. I have engaged myself to marry my
cousin, Captain Walter Marrable, who is a nephew of Sir
Gregory Marrable, and a son of Colonel Marrable. We shall
be very poor, having not more than L300 a-year above his
pay as a captain; but if he had nothing, I think I should
do the same. Do you remember how I used to doubt whether I
should ever have that sort of love for a man for which I
used to envy you? I don't envy you any longer, and I don't
regard Mr. Fenwick as being nearly so divine as I used to
do. I have a Jupiter of my own now, and need envy no woman
the reality of her love.

I have written to Mr. Gilmore by the same post as will
take this, and have just told him the bare truth. What
else could I tell him? I have said something horribly
stilted about esteem and friendship, which I would have
left out, only that my letter seemed to be heartless
without it. He has been to me as good as a man could be;
but was it my fault that I could not love him? If you knew
how I tried,--how I tried to make believe to myself that I
loved him; how I tried to teach myself that that sort of
very chill approbation was the nearest approach to love
that I could ever reach; and how I did this because you
bade me;--if you could understand all this, then you would
not scold me. And I did almost believe that it was so