am a man—with a heart full of all a man's emotions, passionate and strong. Into that heart I took you, from the first moment I ever saw your face. This is just three weeks ago, but it might have been three years—I know you so well. I have watched you continually; every trait of your character—every thought of your mind. From other people I have found out every portion of your history—every daily action of your life. I know you wholly and completely, faults and all, and—I love you. No man will ever love you more than I.
“That you should have the least interest in me now, is, I am aware, unlikely; indeed, almost impossible; therefore I shall not expect or desire any answer to this letter, sent just before I leave for Dorsetshire.
“On my return, a week hence, I shall come and see you, should you not forbid it. I shall come merely as a friend, so that you need have no scruple in my visiting you, once at least. If afterwards, when you know me better, you should suffer me to ask for another title, giving to you the dearest and closest that man can give to woman—then—oh! little you think how I would love you, Agatha!
“Nathanael Locke Harper.”
Agatha read this letter all through with a kind of fascination. Her first emotion was that of most utter astonishment. It had never crossed her mind that Nathanael Harper was the sort of being very likely to fall in love with anybody—and for him to love her! With such a love, too, that despite its suddenness carried with it the impression of quiet depth, strength, and endurance irresistible. It was beyond belief.
She read over again fragments of his own words. “I took you into my heart from the first moment I ever saw you;”—“I love you—no man will ever love you more than I.” “Little you think how I would love you, Agatha!”
Agatha—who a minute before had been pondering mournfully that no one cared for her—that she was of no use to any one—and that no living soul would miss her, were her existence blotted out from the face of earth that very night!
She began to tremble; ay, even though she felt that Nathanael had judged correctly—that she did not now love him, and probably never might—still, overwhelmed with the sudden sense of his great love, she trembled. A strange softness crept over her; and for the second time that day she yielded to a weakness only drawn from her proud heart by rare emotions—Agatha wept.
CHAPTER IV.
To say that Agatha Bowen slept but ill that night would be unnecessary; since there is probably no girl who did not do so after receiving a first love-letter. And this was indeed her first; for the commonplace and business-like episode of young Northen had not been beautified by any such compositions. A second harmless adventure of like kind had furnished her with a little amusement and some vexation—but never till now had her girlish heart been approached by any wooing which she could instinctively feel was that of real love. It touched her very much; for a time absorbing all distinct resolutions or intentions in a maze of pleasant, tender pity, and wonderment not unmixed with fear.
Half the night she lay awake, planning what she should do and say in the future; writing in her head a dozen imaginary answers to Mr. Harper's letter, until she recollected that he had expressly stated it required none. Nevertheless, she thought she must write, if only to tell him that she did not love him, and that there was not the slightest use in his hoping to be anything more to her than a friend.
“A friend!” She recoiled at the word, remembering how sorely her pride and feelings had been wounded by him she once held to be the best friend she had. She never could hold him as such any more. Her impulsive anger exaggerated even to wickedness the vanity of a man who fancied every woman was in love with him. She forgot all Major Harper's good qualities, his high sense of honour, his unselfish kindheartedness, his generous, gay spirit She set him down at once as unworthy the name of friend. Then—what friend had she? Not one—not one in the world.
In this strait, strangely, temptingly sweet seemed to come the words, “I love you; no man will ever love you better than I.”
To one whose heart is altogether free, the knowledge of being deeply loved, and by a man whose attachment would do honour to any woman, is a thought so soothing, so alluring, that from it spring half the marriages—not strictly love-marriages—which take place in the world; sometimes, though not always, ending in real happiness.
Agatha began to consider that it would seem very odd if she wrote to Mr. Harper, in his home, among his family. Perhaps his sisters might notice her handwriting—a useless fear, since they had never seen it; and at all events it would be a pity to trouble his happiness in that pleasant visit, by conveying prematurely the news of his rejection. She would wait, and give him no answer for at least a day or two; it was such a bitter thing to inflict pain on any human being, especially on one so gentle and good as Nathanael Harper.
With this determination she went to sleep. She woke next morning, having a confused sense that something had happened, that some one had grieved and offended her; and—strange consciousness, softly dawning!—that some one loved her—deeply, dearly, as in all the days since she was born she had never been loved before. That even now some one might be thinking of her—of her alone, as his first object in the world. The sensation was new, inexplicable, but pleasant nevertheless. It made her feel—what the desolate orphan girl rarely had felt—a sort of tenderness for, and honouring of, herself. As she dressed, she once looked wistfully, even pensively, in the looking-glass.
“It is certainly a queer, brown, Pawnee face! I wonder what he could see in it to admire. He is very good, very! I wish I could have cared for him!”
Her heart trembled; all the woman in her was touched. But Agatha was resolved not to be sentimental, so she fastened her morning-dress rather more tastefully than usual, and descended to breakfast.
Beside her plate lay a letter, which was pretty closely eyed by the Ianson family, as their inmate's correspondence had always been remarkably small.
“A black edge and seal. No bad news, I hope, my dear Miss Bowen?” said the doctor's wife, sympathetically.
Agatha did not fear. Alas! in the whole wide world she had not a relative to lose! And, glancing at the rather peculiar hand, she recognised it at once. She remembered likewise, to account for the black seal, that one of the Miss Harpers had died within the year. So, whether from the spice of malice in her composition she wished to disappoint the polite inquisitiveness of the Iansons, or whether from more generous reasons of her own, Miss Bowen left her letter unopened until the meal was done; when, carelessly taking it up, she adjourned to her own sitting-room.
There was not the slightest necessity for any such precaution, as the missive contained merely these lines:—
“In my letter of yesterday—which I doubt not you have received, since I posted it myself—I omitted to say that not even my brother is aware of it, or of its purport; as I rarely inform any one of my own private affairs. Though, of course, I presume not to lay the same restriction on you. God bless you!”
The “God bless you!” was added hastily in less neat writing, as if the letter had been broken open to do it. The signature was merely his initials, “N. L. H.,” and the date “Kingcombe Holm,” which Agatha supposed was his father's house in Dorsetshire.
Then, even there, amidst his dear home circle, he had thought of her! Agatha was more moved by that trifling circumstance, and by the self-restraint and silence that accompanied it, than she would have been by a whole quire of ordinary love-letters.
He did not write again during seven entire days, and while this pause lasted she had time to think much and deeply. She ceased to play and talk confidentially with Tittens, and felt herself growing into a woman fast. Great mental changes may at times be wrought in one week, especially when it happens to be one of those not infrequent July weeks, which seem as if the sky were bent upon raining out at once the tears of