What is it you want to see me for particularly ?' 'I know you are sorry, as time goes on, and everything is at a dead-lock, with no prospect of change, and your rural swain loses his freshness! Only think, this secret understanding between us has lasted near three year, ever since you was a little over sixteen.' 'Yes; it has been a long time.' 'And I an untamed, uncultivated man, who has never seen London, and knows nothing about society at all.' 'Not uncultivated, dear Nicholas.

Untravelled, socially unpractised, if you will,' she said, smiling.

'Well, I did sigh; but not because I regret being your promised one.

What I do sometimes regret is that the scheme, which my meetings with you are but a part of, has not been carried out completely.

You said, Nicholas, that if I consented to swear to keep faith with you, you would go away and travel, and see nations, and peoples, and cities, and take a professor with you, and study books and art, simultaneously with your study of men and manners; and then come back at the end of two years, when I should find that my father would by no means be indisposed to accept you as a son-in-law.