"My dearest Tishy,
"I have a piece of news to tell that will be a great surprise to you. I am engaged to Conrad Vereker. Perhaps, though, I oughtn't to say as much as that, because it hasn't gone any farther at present than me promising not to marry any one else, and as far as I can see I might have promised any man that.
"Now, don't write and say you expected it all along, because I shan't believe you.
"Of course, tell anybody you like—only I hope they'll all say that's no concern of theirs. I should be so much obliged to them. Besides, so very little has transpired to go by that I can't see exactly what they could either congratulate or twit about. Being engaged is so very shadowy. Do you remember our dancing-mistress at school, who had been engaged seven years to a dancing-master, and then they broke it off by mutual consent, and she married a Creole? And they'd saved up enough for a school of their own all the time! However, as long as it's distinctly understood there's to be no marrying at present, I don't think the arrangement a bad one. Of course, you'll understand I mean other girls, and the sort of men they get engaged to. With Prosy it's different; one knows where one is. Only I shouldn't consider it honourable to jilt Prosy, even for the sake of remaining single. You see what I mean.
"The reason of pencil (don't be alarmed!) is that I am writing this in bed, having been too long in the water. It's to please Prosy, because my System has had a shake. I am feeling very queer still, and can't control my thumb to write. I must tell you about it, or you'll get the story somewhere else and be frightened.
"It was all Jeremiah's fault, and I really can't think what he was doing. He admits that he was seedy, and had had a bad night. Anyhow, it was like this: I followed him down to the pier very early before breakfast, and you remember where the man
was fishing and caught nothing that day? Well, what does Jeremiah do but just walk plump over the edge. I had all but got to him, by good luck, and of course I went straight for him and caught him before he sank. I induced him not to kick and flounder, and got him inside a life-belt they threw from the pier, and then I settled to leave him alone and swim to the steps, because you've no idea how I felt my clothes, and it would have been all right, only a horrible heavy petticoat got loose and demoralised me. I don't know how it happened, but I got all wrong somehow, and a breaker caught me. Don't get drowned, Tishy; or, if you do, don't be revived again! I don't know which is worst, but I think reviving. I can't write about it. I'll tell you when I come back.
"They won't tell me how long I was coming to, but it must have been much longer than I thought, when one comes to think of it. Only I can't tell, because when poor dear Prosy had got me to[A]—down at Lloyd's Coffeehouse, where old Simon sits all day—and I had been wrapped up in what I heard a Scotchman call 'weel-warmed blawnkets,' and brought home in a closed fly from Padlock's livery stables, I went off sound asleep with my fingers and toes tingling, and never knew the time nor anything. (Continuation bit.) This is being written, to tell you the truth, in the small hours of the morning, in secrecy with a guttering candle. It seems to have been really quite a terrible alarm to poor darling mother and Jeremiah, and much about the same to my medical adviser, who resuscitated me on Marshall Hall's system, followed by Silvester's, and finally opened a vein. And there was I alive all the time, and not grateful to Prosy at all, I can tell you, for bringing me to. I have requested not to be brought to next time. The oddity of it all was indescribable. And there, now I come to think of it, I've never so much as seen the Octopus since Prosy and I got engaged. I shall have to go round as soon as I'm up. (Later continuation bit—after breakfast.) Do you know, it makes me quite miserable to think what an anxiety I've been to all of them! Mother and J. can't take their eyes off me, and look quite wasted and resigned. And poor dear Prosy! How ever shall I make it up to him? Do you know,
as soon as it was known I was to,[B] the dear fellow actually tumbled down insensible! I had no idea of the turn-out there's been until just now, when mother and Jeremiah confessed up. Just fancy it! Now I must shut up to catch the post.
"Your ever affect. friend,