I now see, and bitterly regret my error, yet deem it better to make this painful confession than suffer you to remain in a delusion which may involve your happiness in the wreck of mine.

I am most faithfully your friend, "Emily Bingham." What a charming girl she is, I cried, as I finished the letter; how full of true feeling, how honourably, how straight-forward: and yet it is devilish strange how cunningly she played her part--and it seems now that I never did touch her affections; Master Harry, I begin to fear you are not altogether the awful lady-killer you have been thinking.

Thus did I meditate upon this singular note--my delight at being once more "free" mingling with some chagrin that I was jockied, and by a young miss of eighteen, too.

Confoundedly disagreeable if the mess knew it, thought I.
Per Baccho--how they would quiz upon my difficulty to break off a match, when the lady was only anxious to get rid of me.
This affair must never come to their ears, or I am ruined; and now, the sooner all negociations are concluded the better.

I must obtain a meeting with Emily.