ce;--

MY DEAR TRINGLE,

If you will think of it all round you will see that you
have got no cause of quarrel with me any more than I have
with you. If it be the case that we are both attached to
your cousin, we must abide her decision whether it be in
favour of either of us, or, as may be too probably the
case, equally adverse to both of us. If I understand your
letter rightly, you think that I behaved unfairly when I
did not tell you of my own affairs upon hearing yours from
your own lips. Why should I? Why should I have been held
to be constrained to tell my secret because you, for
your own sake, had told me yours? Had I been engaged to
your cousin,--which I regret to say is very far from the
case,--I should have told you, naturally. I should have
regarded the matter as settled, and should have acquainted
you with a fact which would have concerned you. But as
such was not a fact, I was by no means bound to tell you
how my affairs stood. This ought to be clear to you, and I
hope will be when you have read what I say.

I may as well go on to declare that under no circumstances
should I fight a duel with you. If I thought I had done
wrong in the matter I would beg your pardon. I can't
do that as it is,--though I am most anxious to appease
you,--because I have done you no wrong.

Pray forget your animosity,--which is in truth
unfounded,--and let us be friends as we were before.

Yours very sincerely,

JONATHAN STUBBS.

Faddle reached London the evening before the Colonel's letter, and
again dined with his friend at Bolivia's. At first they were both
extremely angry, acerbating each other's wrath. Now that he was safe
back in London Faddle thought that he would have enjoyed an evening
among the "swells" of Stalham, and felt himself to be injured by the
inhospitable treatment he had received--"after going all the way down
there, hardly to be asked to sit down!"

"Not asked to sit down!"

"Well, yes, I was;--on a miserable cane-bottomed chair in a sort of
cupboard. And he didn't sit down. You may call them swells, but I
think your Colonel Stubbs is a very vulgar sort of fellow. When I
told him the post isn't the proper thing for such a letter, he only
laughed. I suppose he doesn't know what is the kind of thing among
gentlemen."

"I should think he does know," said Tom.

"Then why doesn't he act accordingly? Would you b