Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/725

 710 thought that they had a common interest in parish matters, which involved a good deal of discussion. And there was nothing in the conduct of either that I could complain of as loverlike, even if I had possessed any right to complain at all, ‘which I hadn’t any.’ I had never ‘told my love.’ I am not prepared to state that on this second visit I might not have, almost involuntarily, betrayed myself; but there had never been the slightest approach to what I believe is called a ‘declaration.’ Our friendly intercourse had reached the stage of our calling one another by our Christian names. Her brother called me Frank habitually, as I called him Fred (which we should probably never have done if our intimacy had dated from our Cambridge days), and she naturally fell, as indeed all the family did, into the same habit. Equally natural it seemed for me to call her Mary. My stay at this time