She knew, oh!, she knew, although no word of it had ever been spoken between them, that theirs was the Love Eternal.
The quick perception of her woman's mind told her these things, of which Godfrey's in its slower growth was not yet aware.
Animated by this new idea that she had really seen Godfrey, and what was much worse, that Godfrey had really seen her upon an occasion when she would have much preferred to remain invisible to him, she was filled with remorse, and determined to write him a letter.

Like that of the young man himself to his father, its composition took her a good deal of time.
Here it is as copied from her third and final draft:-- "My dear old Godfrey,--I have an idea that you were in the Square on the night of the fancy ball when I came out, and wore that horrid Plantagenet dress which, after all, did not fit.

(I sent it to a jumble-sale where no one would buy it, so I gave it to Mrs.
Smilie, who has nine children, to cut into frocks for her little girls.) If you _were_ there, instead of resting before your long journey as you ought to have done, and saw me with a man in armour and a rose--and the rest, of course you will have understood that this was all part of the game.

You see, we had to pretend that we were knights and ladies who, when they were not cutting throats or being carried off with their hair down, seem to have wasted their time in giving each other favours, and all that sort of bosh.

(We did not know what a favour was, so we used a rose.) The truth is that the young man and his armour, especially his spurs which tore my dress, and everything about him bored me, the more so because all the while I was thinking of--well, other things--how you would get through your journey, and like those French people and the rest.