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UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.

sheet of paper and uncorking the ink-bottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the writer's mind was so powerfully apparent in every line of this effusion, that it obscured the logical sequence of facts and intentions to such an appreciable degree that it was not at all clear to a reader whether he there and then left off loving Miss Fancy Day; whether he had never loved her seriously, and never meant to; whether he had been dying up to the present moment, and now intended to get well again; or whether he had hitherto been in good health, and intended to die for her forthwith.

He put his letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a stern handwriting of straight firm dashes—easy flourishes being rigorously excluded. He walked with it in his pocket down the lane in strides not an inch less than three feet and a half long. Reaching her gate he put on a resolute ex-

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