Pity me who must stay and fret in London, while you are enjoying
yourself at Broadstairs. How I long to be there, surveying the ocean by
your side, and tracing your dear name on the sands! But fate and a
father have placed a barrier between us. So I pace up and down before
the old house in T---- Square, and look up at a certain dormitory on the
second story--in no state of elevation you may be sure--and make plans
for the future, and build castles in the air, and try to forget that my
designs on your heart appear ridiculous to your papa, whose estimate of
me I am aware is not in excess. For can I forget what he said that wet
Saturday afternoon in the back drawing-room, when I tendered myself to
him as a son-in-law, and the tender was not accepted? After telling him
that it was the summit, the pinnacle of my ambition to win you
as my wife, did he not answer that he considered I ought not to aspire
to your hand until the statement of my pecuniary means (as he worded it)
was more satisfactory, and, meanwhile, requested me to discontinue my
pointed attentions? Never until _you_ bid me. Only be firm, and the
difficulties now in our way will but serve to cement us more closely
together; only be true and I will wait patiently for that day which
shall put the coping-stone to my happiness. I build upon every word,
every look, every smile I can call to mind. You _will_ write and assure
me there is no foundation for the report of another and more fortunate
competitor, but that I still fill the same niche in your affections I
ever did? For, Caroline, were I to hear you were an "engaged" Tower, I
could not survive the blow. I should stab myself with my compasses in
the back office.
But away with such gloomy fears. Let me picture her to myself. How plumb
she stands! How arch she looks! What a beam in her eye! What a graceful
curve in her neck! What an exquisitely chiselled nose! What a brick of a
girl altogether! I must stop in my specification, or you will think
there is something wrong in my upper story, and not give credence to a
word I say.
I have just been calling on your sister, and saw your little pet Poppy,
who talked in her pretty _Early English_ about "Tant Tarry." Aunt Sarah
was there, staying the day, looking as mediæval as ever, and with her
hair dressed in the usual Decorated style. She hinted that you were
imperious, and that any man who married you must make up his mind (grim
joke) to fetch and Carry at your bidding. And then you were so
ambitious! The wiseacre! why, I will leave no stone unturned to get on
in my profession if you will only be constant. I will be the architect
of my own fortunes--your love the keystone of my prosperity. The columns
of every newspaper shall record my success; every capital in Europe
shall know my name. She did not unhinge me a bit, and the shafts of her
ridicule fell harmless; although, she made an allusion to "dumpy" men,
which I knew was levelled at me, and sneered at married life as very
pretty for a time, but the stucco soon fell off. Poor Aunt Sarah! I left
her sitting up quite perpendicular with that everlasting work which she
is always herring-boning. And now, Carry, darling--oh, dear! I am wanted
about something in our designs for the new Law Courts, and have only
time to sign myself,
Your own, till Domesday, NORMAN.