And you shall too, Alice!'
'Well, but I'm not a working girl now, Dick.'
He laughed, and said it was time to go to bed.
The same evening conversation continued to a late hour
between Hubert Eldon and his mother. Hubert was returning to London
the next morning.
Yesterday there had come to him two letters from Wanley, both
addressed in female hand. He knew Adela's writing from her signature
in the 'Christian Year,' and hastily opened the letter which came
from her. The sight of the returned sonnets checked the eager flow
of his blood; he was prepared for what he afterwards read.
'Then let her meet her fate,'--so ran his thoughts when he had
perused the cold note, unassociable with the Adela he imagined in
its bald formality. 'Only life can teach her.'
The other letter he suspected to be from Letty Tew, as it was.
'DEAR MR. ELDON,--I cannot help writing a line to you, lest you
should think that I did not keep my promise in the way you
understood it. I did indeed. You will hear from her; she preferred
to write herself, and perhaps it was better; I should only have had
painful things to say. I wish to ask you to have no unkind or unjust
thoughts; I scarcely think you could have. Please do not trouble to
answer this, but believe me, yours sincerely,
'L.
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