be very hard, and for my part I'm
very glad; I shouldn't like to marry a disconsolate widow. I
think we could fight on the college green, and Dr. Small
might have a chair placed for him under the big tree to look
on from--near his door, you know.

"I have the honor to be,

"Yours truly,

"Charles HOFFLAND.

VII.

"Mr. HOFFLAND:

"Your note is very strange. You ask me to advise you whom to
take as your second; and then you lay down rules which I
never heard of before. I suppose a gentleman can right his
grievances without having to fight first and marry
afterwards. What you write is so much like joking, that I
don't know what to make of it. You seem to be very young and
inexperienced, sir, and you say you have no friend but
Mowbray.

"I'm obliged to you for your delicacy about Mowbray, but I
cannot take it upon myself to advise any one else.--I hardly
know how to write to you, for the whole thing seems a joke
to you. If you were jesting in what you said, say so, sir,
and we can shake hands. I don't want to take your blood for
a joke, and especially as you are a stranger here.

"Your obed't serv't,

"J. DENIS."

VIII.

"Joking, my dear fellow? Of course I was joking! Did you
think I really was in earnest when I said that I was so
handsome, and was engaged already, et cetera, and so forth,
as one of my friends used to say? I was jesting! For on my
sacred word of honor, I am not engaged to any one--and yet I
could not marry Lucy. I am wedded already--to my own ideas!
I am not my own master--and yet I have no mistress!

"But I ought not to be tiring you in this way. Why didn't
you ask me if I was joking at first? Of course I was! I was
laughing all the time and teasing you. It's enough to make
me die a-laughing to think we were going to murder each
other for joking. I was plaguing you! for I saw at once from
what you said that you were hopelessly in----well, well! I
won't tell your secrets.

"Yours truly,

"Charles HOFFLAND."

IX.

"Mr. HOFFLAND:

"I am very glad you were joking, and I am glad you have said
so