There! I may as well get it out at once, for it does not improve by
keeping--it is all over between you and me, my dear, dear old Bottles."
"All over!" he gasped to himself.
"I hardly know how to tell the miserable story," went on the letter,
"but as it must be told I suppose I had better begin from the beginning.
A month ago I went with my father and my aunt to the Hunt Ball at
Atherton, and there I met Sir Alfred Croston, a middle-aged gentleman,
who danced with me several times. I did not care about him much, but
he made himself very agreeable, and when I got home aunt--you know her
nasty way--congratulated me on my conquest. Well, next day he came
to call, and papa asked him to stop to dinner, and he took me in, and
before he went away he told me that he was coming to stop at the George
Inn to fish for trout in the lake. After that he came here every day,
and whenever I went out walking he always met me, and really was kind
and nice. At last one day he asked me to marry him, and I was very angry
and told him that I was engaged to a gentleman in the army, who was in
South Africa. He laughed, and said South Africa was a long way off, and
I hated him for it. That evening papa and aunt set on me--you know they
neither of them liked our engagement--and told me that our affair was
perfectly silly, and that I must be mad to refuse such an offer.
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