'I shall not be in a hurry. I must sleep on it before I write!' She
took up the novel she had been reading in the afternoon, and read on
at it steadily till her bedtime.

That night she did not sleep. It was not that she was agitated.
Indeed, she was more at ease than she had been for days; she had
after much anxious thought made up her mind to a definite course of
action. Therefore her sleeplessness was not painful. It was rather
that she did not want to sleep, than that she could not. She lay
still, thinking, thinking; dreaming such dreams as are the occasions
of sanctified privacy to her age and sex.

In the morning she was no worse for her vigil. When at luncheon-time
Aunt Laetitia had returned she went into all the little matters of
which she had to report. It was after tea-time when she found
herself alone, and with leisure to attend to what was, she felt,
directly her own affair. During the night she had made up her mind
exactly what to say to Leonard; and as her specific resolution bore
the test of daylight she was satisfied. The opening words had in
their inception caused her some concern; but after hours of thought
she had come to the conclusion that to address, under the
circumstance, the recipient of the letter as 'Dear Mr. Everard' would
hardly do. The only possible justification of her unconventional act
was that there existed already a friendship, an intimacy of years,
since childhood; that there were already between them knowledge and
understanding of each other; that what she was doing, and about to
do, was but a further step in a series of events long ago undertaken.

She thought it better to send by post rather than messenger, as the