AGAIN, OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 129

Are you ready and willing to fulfil your engagement ?
I have been true to you. If there be a moment’s
doubt on your mind, you are free. J. B.”

Such was her letter. Williams sat and pondered.
It troubled him ; but then could he really marry,
and bring home as his wife, that girl against whom
so much had been said? No, he never could! besides,
what would his uncle say ?— what would Mrs. Proctor,
what would everybody say ? It was a very silly affair
altogether—a boyish folly. People could not live on
love and gratitude ; if there were plenty of money,
it would be a different affair. No, no, he must put
an end to it at once.

He wrote. His letter might have served as a
model for the Complete Letter-Writer. He spoke
most feelingly of the death of his aunt, of his sense of
duty to her, of the force of circumstances, of his own
future and present dependence on his uncle, of the
sacrifice he had been compelled to make of his feel-
ings, of his unworthiness of her, of the certainty
that she would meet with one much more deserving;
in short, the letter said, as plainly as letter could say,
that, to use a common phrase, he desired to wash his
hands of the whole thing. ,

He heard no more from her. She sent no letter
of reproach or remonstrance; and he began to
congratulate himself on having so well got rid of the
connection.

Not long after this, his uncle’s death left him very
unexpectedly possessed of so handsome a legacy as
gave him quite another position in life. He began to
take ambitious views, but still he was man of the
world enough to bear his greatness with a very philo-