Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope [popular e readers txt] 📗

would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that.

When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me.

I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it.

God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer.

Affectionately your friend,

Thomas Thorne.

When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her⁠—it might be said in a postscript⁠—that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o’clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bedroom. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning⁠—so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest⁠—he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill.

“I’se wait for an answer?” said the boy.

“No,” said the doctor: “leave the letter, and come away.”

The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours’ work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down.

She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. “Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast,” said Miss Dunstable.

“You traitor; you false, black traitor!” were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend.

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for matchmaking. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?”

“Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all.”

“Indeed you’ll do no such thing. You think it’s a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there’s not a word about love in it.”

“I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him.”

“He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool.”

“I am sure he does not say that.”

“Ah! but I’m sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true⁠—not in the sense that he means it.”

“Dear, dearest woman, don’t go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting.”

“Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that.”

“Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken