The difficulty of my position with regard to her and her mother likewise troubled me.
So, taking all these points into consideration, my office life was not a happy one,--though, if matters had been arranged more comfortably for me, touching the future, I would have cheerfully put up with more temporary annoyances than I actually suffered, slaving on indefinitely under Smudge's rule.
As it was, I couldn't.
I used to dream of Min all day, imagining what she might be doing down in the country.
I fancied all sorts of things about her.
I thought that she would forget me and like some one else better, knowing how joyfully Mrs Clyde would encourage any wooer whose presence might tend to make her turn from me.
The worst of it was, too, that I had no one to sympathise with me.

I could not, exactly, go round asking people to "pity the sorrows of a disappointed lover!" As Lamartine sings in his "Tear of Consolation":-- "Qu'importe a ces hommes mes freres Le coeur brise d'un malheureux?
Trop au-dessus de mes miseres, Mon infortune est si loin d'eux!" How could I implore sympathy?
Would you have given me yours?
I would be almost ashamed to tell how I was in the habit of "mooning away my time," thinking of Min--when, the first novelty of the office having worn off, I found my duties so wearisome and easily got through, that I had nothing to keep me from thinking! I used to idle sadly.
I often wasted hours, in dreamily composing intricate monograms on my blotting-paper, in which Min's name was twisted into all sorts of flowery characters, which were intermingled so as to be nearly incomprehensible to any one unacquainted with my secret.
My fellow-clerks got an inkling of it, however.
They used to ask me, who "M" was; and, when I got savage, and told them to mind their own business, they would "chaff" me, inquiring whether "the unknown fair" was obdurately "cruel," or no! Little Miss Pimpernell tried to cheer me up--telling me to "hope on, hope ever;" and, to stick steadily to my work, for, that Min would be certain to come back soon, when all would be well.

But, I could not content myself.
I got pale and thin, worrying myself to death .-- Even Lady Dasher saw the change in me, hinting one day to the vicar, in my hearing, that she was positive I was in a decline, or suffering from heart-disease, and that office-work was really too hard for me.
And when Min _did_ come back, things were but little brighter for me.
The first opportunity I had of speaking alone to her, I asked her if I might still call her by her Christian name.

She said, "certainly," with a little tremor in her dear voice and a warm blush which almost tempted me to say more.

But, I remembered having pledged my word to Mrs Clyde, and did not urge my suit, then or thereafter, by words or looks--as far as I could help the latter.
We did not meet often now; and, perhaps, it was as well that we did not, for our position was awkward for both of us.
When we did, however, it seemed very hard for me to speak to her in cold conventional terms--when, my heart was overflowing with love towards her; and, this made me appear constrained; while, she showed a shy avoidance of me, which, only natural as it was, pained me--although I was certain, all the time, that she had not changed towards me in the least.
Really, if it had not been for the kind contrivances of dear little Miss Pimpernell, I don't think we would have met for a long, long time, at all.
Now, that my days were fully occupied at "the office," you know, I could not meet her out, or see her at the window; and, in spite of her mother's gracious intimation that I might call occasionally, I did not care about going there in the evening to be stared into formality under her icy eye.
When Christmastide came round again, too, there were no more of the happy days that had occurred on its previous anniversary.
Although I had obtained special leave from my chief, through working up an enormous number of old accounts beforehand, and thus gaining his good will, it was entirely thrown away:--Min did not present herself at the room of the evergreens once! Mrs Clyde had checkmated me, again, there.
Had it not been for Miss Pimpernell's pleadings, I think I would now have gone against her advice, and brought matters to an issue by another proposal before the year was out.
My better judgment, however, restrained me from this, when I reflected over all the circumstances of the case in more reasoning moments.
I saw that it was best for me to wait until the full probationary period which my old friend had prescribed should elapse.