"And now you can do as you please. You may be quite sure that I shall be true to you, through ill report and good report. Nothing that mamma can say to me will change me, and certainly nothing from Sir Magnus.
"And now there need not be a word from you, if you mean to be true to me. Indeed, I have promised that there shall be no word, and I expect you to keep my promise for me. If you wish to be free of me, then you must write and say so.
"But you won't wish it, and therefore I am yours, always, always, always your own
"FLORENCE."
Harry read the letter standing up in the middle of the room, and in half a minute he had torn off his wet coat and kicked one of his wet boots to the farther corner of the room. Then there was a knock at the door, and his mother entered, "Tell me, Harry, what she says."
He rushed up to his mother, all damp and half-shod as he was, and seized her in his arms. "Oh, mother, mother!"
"What is it, dear?"
"Read that, and tell me whether there ever was a finer human being!" Mrs. Annesley did read it, and thought that her own daughter Molly was just as fine a creature. Florence was simply doing what any girl of spirit would do. But she saw that her son was as jubilant now as he had been downcast, and she was quite willing to partake of his comfort. "Not write a word to her! Ha, ha! I think I see myself at it!"
"But she seems to be in earnest there."
"In earnest! And so am I in earnest. Would it be possible that a fellow should hold his hand and not write? Yes, my girl; I think that I must write a line. I wonder what she would say if I were not to write?"