from the trouble and snare into which the lot of women seems to drive them,--too close a contemplation of self, too nice a sensitiveness, which yet does not interfere with devotedness to others. She will be a devoted wife: but Margaret does not wait to be a wife to be devoted. Her life has been devotedness, and will be to the end. If she were left the last of her race, she would spend her life in worshipping the unseen that lay about her, and would be as unaware of herself as now. "What a comfort it is to speak freely of them! This is the first relief of the kind I have had. Every one is praising them; every one is following them: but to whom but you can I speak of them? Even to you, I filled my first sheet with mere surface matter. I now wonder how I could. As for the `general opinion' of Deerbrook on the engrossing subject of the summer, you will anticipate it in your own mind,--concluding that Hester is most worshipped, on account of her beauty, and that Margaret's influence must be too subtle and refined to operate on more than a few. This is partly, but not wholly the case. It has been taken for granted from the beginning, by the many, that Hester is to be exclusively the adored; and Enderby has, I fancy, as many broad hints as myself of this general conclusion. But I question whether Enderby assents, any more than myself. Margaret's influence may be received as unconsciously as it is exerted, but it is not, therefore, the less real, while it is the more potent. I see old Jem Bird raise himself up from the churchyard bench by his staff, and stand uncovered as Hester passes by; I see the children in the road touch one another, and look up at her; I see the admiration which diffuses itself like sunshine around her steps: all this homage to Hester is visible enough. But I also see Sydney Grey growing manly, and his sisters amiable, under Margaret's eye. I fancy I perceive Enderby--But that is his own affair. I am sure I daily witness one healing and renovating process which Margaret is unconsciously effecting. There is no one of us so worthy of her, so capable of appreciating her, as Maria Young: they are friends, and Maria Young is becoming a new creature. Health and spirit are returning to that poor girl's countenance: there is absolutely a new tone in her voice, and a joyous strain in her conversation, which I, for one, never recognised before. It is a sight on which angels might look down, to see Margaret, with her earnest face, listening humbly, and lovingly serving the infirm and much-tried friend whom she herself is daily lifting up into life and gladness. I have done with listening to abuse of life and the world. I will never sit still under it again. If there are two such as these sisters, springing out of the bosom of a busy town, and quietly passing along their path of life, casting