is
done and that truth prevails. So I commend you to the good Osiris; may
his eye be upon you, ever watchful over your welfare in the absence of

"Your affectionate friend

"RUTH."

It was a sweet letter, I thought, even if it carried little comfort;
quiet and reticent like its writer, but with an undertone of sincere
affection. I laid it down at length, and, taking the ring from its box,
examined it fondly. Though but a copy, it had all the quaintness and
feeling of the antique original, and, above all, it was fragrant with
the spirit of the giver. Dainty and delicate, wrought of silver and
gold, with an inlay of copper, I would not have exchanged it for the
Koh-i-noor; and when I had slipped it on my finger its tiny eye of blue
enamel looked up at me so friendly and companionable that I felt the
glamour of the old-world superstition stealing over me, too.

Not a single patient came in this evening, which was well for me (and
also for the patient), as I was able forthwith to write in reply a long
letter; but this I shall spare the long-suffering reader excepting its
concluding paragraph:--

"And now, dearest, I have said my say; once for all, I have said it, and
I will not open my mouth on the subject again (I am not actually opening
it now) 'until the times do alter.' And if the times do never alter--if
it shall come to pass, in due course, that we two shall sit side by
side, white-haired, and crinkly-nosed, and lean our poor old chins upon
our sticks and mumble and gibber amicably over the things that might
have been if the good Osiris had come up to the scratch--I will still be
content, because your friendship, Ruth, is better than another woman's
love. So you see, I have taken my gruel and come up to time smiling--if
you will pardon the pugilistic metaphor--and I promise you loyally to do
your bidding and never again to distress you.

"Your faithful and loving friend,

"PAUL."

This letter I addressed and stamped, and then, with a wry grimace which
I palmed off on myself (but not on Adolphus) as a cheerful smile, I went
out and dropped it into the post-box; after which I further deluded
myself by murmuring _Nunc dimittis_ and assuring myself that the
incident was now absolutely closed.

But, despite this comfortable assurance, I was, in the days that
followed, an exceedingly miserable young man. It is all very well to
write down troubles of this kind as trivial and sentimental. They are
nothing of the k