herself, was given to Alice in large and plenteous measure. If she talked with me, her soul was all mine. If she was waiting on Madam, or upon Sir Christopher, or upon the Rector, or on her own mother, she knew their inmost thoughts and divined all their wants. Nay, long afterwards, in the daily exercise of work and study, at the University of Oxford, in the foreign schools of Montpellier, Padua, and Leyden, it was Alice who, though far away, encouraged me. I could no longer hear her voice; but her steadfast eyes remained in my mind like twin stars that dwell in heaven. This is a wondrous power given to a few women, that they should become as it were angels sent from heaven, lent to the earth a while, in order to fill men's minds with worthy thoughts, and to lead them in the heavenly way. The Romish Church holds that the age of miracles hath never passed; which I do also believe, but not in the sense taught by that Church. Saints there are among us still, who daily work miracles, turning earthly clay into the jasper and the precious marble of heaven! Again, the great poet Milton hath represented his virtuous lady unharmed among the rabble rout of Comus, protected by her virtue alone. Pity that he hath not also shown a young man led by that sweet lady, encouraged, warned, and guarded along that narrow way, beset with quag and pitfall, along which he must walk who would willingly climb to higher place! And all this apart from earthly love, as in the case of those two Italian poets. More, I confess, I would have had, and presumptuously longed for it--nay, even prayed for it with such yearnings and longings as seemed to tear my very heart asunder. But this was denied to me.