some counsellor of a sterner
sort. So she put the letter in her pocket, went down tranquilly
to breakfast, and after breakfast wrote the note which we have
mentioned.

All that day she thought about it to herself, and all the next day.
On the evening of the second day she had all but brought herself to
give in. Then came George's note, and the fancied tone of triumph
hardened her heart once more. On the evening of that day she was firm
to her principles. She had acted hitherto, and would continue to act,
according to the course she had laid down for herself.

On the fourth day she was sitting in the drawing-room alone--for her
aunt had gone out of Littlebath for the day--when Adela Gauntlet
came to call on her. Adela she knew would counsel her to yield, and
therefore she would certainly not have gone to Adela for advice. But
she was sad at heart; and sitting there with the letter among her
threads and needles before her, she gradually found it impossible not
to talk of it--to talk of it, and at last to hand it over to be read.

There could be no doubt at all as to the nature of Adela's advice;
but Caroline had had no conception of the impetuosity of matured
conviction on the subject, of the impassioned eloquence with which
that advice would be given. She had been far from thinking that Adela
had any such power of passion.

"Well," said she, as Adela slowly folded the sheet and put it back
into its envelope; "well; what answer shall I make to it?"

"Can you doubt, Caroline?" said Adela, and Miss Gauntlet's eyes shone
as Caroline had never before seen them shine.

"Indeed, I do doubt; doubt very much. Not that I ought to doubt. What
I knew to be wise a week ago, I know also to be wise now. But one is
so weak, and it is so hard to refuse those whom we love."

"Hard, indeed!" said Adela. "To my thinking, a woman would have a
stone instead of a heart who could refuse such a request as that from
a man to whom she has confessed her love."

"But because you love a man, would you wish to make a beggar of him?"

"We are too much afraid of what we call beggary," said Adela.
"Beggary, Caroline, with four hundred pounds a year! You had no right
to accept a man if you intended to decline to live with him on such
an income as that. He should make no request; it should come from him
as a demand."

"A demand. No; his time for demands has not yet come."

"But it has come if you are true to your word. You should have
thought