Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/261

As soon as he got back to Longpuddle he found that Harriet had already looked wi’ favor upon another lover. He was a young road - contractor, and Jack could not but admit that his rival was, both in manners snd scholarship, much ahead of him. Indeed, a more sensible match for the beauty who had been dropped into the village by fate could hardly have been found than this man, who could offer her so much better a chance than Jack could have done, with his uncertain future and narrow abilities for grappling with the world. The fact was so clear to him that he could hardly blame her.

“One day by accident Jack saw on a scrap of paper the handwriting of Harriet’s new beloved. It was flowing like a stream, well spelled, the work of a man accustomed to the ink-hottle and the dictionary——of a man already called in the parish a good scholar, And then it struck all of a sudden into Jack’s mind what a contrast the letters of this young man must make to his own miserable old letters, and how ridiculous they must make his lines appear. He groaned and wished he had never written to her, and wondered if she had ever kept his poor performances. Possibly she had kept them, for women are in the habit of doing that, he thought; and while they were in her hands there was always a chance of his honest, stupid love assurances to her being joked over by Harriet with her present lover, or by anybody who should accidentally uncover them.

“The nervous, moody young man could not bear the thought of it, and at length decided to ask her to return them, as was proper when engagements were broken off. He was some hours in framing, copying, and recopying the short note in which he made his request, and having finished it, he sent it to her house. His messenger came back with the answer,