on;--with your money,
possibly, but certainly with your warmest spirit.

And now, once again, Alice,--dearest Alice, will you
be my wife? I have been punished, and I have kissed the
rod,--as I never kissed any other rod. You cannot accuse
my love. Since the time in which I might sit with my arm
round your waist, I have sat with it round no other waist.
Since your lips were mine, no other lips have been dear
to me. Since you were my counsellor, I have had no other
counsellor,--unless it be poor Kate, whose wish that we
may at length be married is second in earnestness only
to my own. Nor do I think you will doubt my repentance.
Such repentance indeed claims no merit, as it has been
the natural result of the loss which I have suffered.
Providence has hitherto been very good to me in not having
made that loss irremediable by your marriage with Mr Grey.
I wish you now to consider the matter well, and to tell me
whether you can pardon me and still love me. Do I flatter
myself when I feel that I doubt your pardon almost more
than I doubt your love?

Think of this thing in all its bearings before you answer
me. I am so anxious that you should think of it that I
will not expect your reply till this day week. It can
hardly be your desire to go through life unmarried. I
should say that it must be essential to your ambition that
you should join your lot to that of some man the nature
of whose aspirations would be like to your own. It is
because this was not so as regarded him whose suit you had
accepted, that you found yourself at last obliged to part
from him. May I not say that with us there would be no
such difference? It is because I believe that in this
respect we are fitted for each other, as man and woman
seldom are fitted, that I once again ask you to be my
wife.

This will reach you at Vavasor, where you will now be with
the old squire and Kate. I have told her nothing of my
purpose in writing this letter. If it should be that your
answer is such as I desire, I should use the opportunity
of our re-engagement to endeavour to be reconciled to my
grandfather. He has misunderstood me and has ill-used me.
But I am ready to forgive that, if he will allow me to
do so. In such case you and Kate would arrange that, and
I would, if possible, go down to Vavasor while you are
there. But I am gallop