How changed my feelings now from those penned above, wrung from me by jealousy and despair! ’Tis as if I had been groping in some dark, noisome cave alone—ay, alone and fearful—and had suddenly entered an inner chamber, before unknown, where a thousand lights are dancing and reflecting against its brilliant columns and gem-like stalactites pendent from its illuminated sides and dome—so beautiful—so sudden has been the change. To begin at the beginning and tell how came this change. For three days had I kept my room. On the afternoon of the third I stole out unobserved, as I thought, and made my way to the old, sombre-looking forest—my favorite haunt—where, under its dark, umbrageous trees, amid its gloom and solitude, I sought for companionship for my own sad thoughts. Seated on a fallen tree, turning with my foot the dry leaves listlessly, and hearing the moaning and sighing of the breeze through the tree tops. No other sound reached me; but I started up wildly—for sickness had made me nervous—as a hand was laid upon my arm, and scarcely heard his loved voice, softened into tenderness, for the loud beating of my own poor heart. “I hope that I have not frightened you much, dear Florence. Have you, at last, got well?” “Not entirely; but I am better, Colonel Dudley, though still I have some remains of my headache.” And I closed my eyes, which were rapidly filling with tears, and turned from him my face, that he might not observe them. “Your illness has been a sad, sad trial to me, Florence,” said he, softly. “I missed you more than I can tell you. My nights have been sleepless from anticipation and from disappointment at not seeing you, as I hoped each day to do, when I arose. How I sighed for your companionship. Even after I went to my chamber last night, I again left it when the whole house seemed to be quiet, and wandered _here_ to your favorite spot where so oft I have listened to you. I have inquired each day concerning you till I am fearful I tired the patience of both your cousin and uncle. They said you were only slightly unwell, but that it was your custom to keep your room when annoyed by companionship not pleasing to your taste, made fastidious by a long residence in the city and by novel-reading! You see how candid I am, but I have my reasons for being thus explicit. I thought them unkind—I began to think if I were the one who had wearied you, and memory, faithful to your charming ways, said at once ‘no’—for I could see that my company was more welcome than that of my aunt and your cousin. Nay, start not from me, dear Florence, I mean nothing to injure the most sensitive delicacy, but to show you the meditations to which I have been led by your sickness, and let you decide for me whether my future is to be happiness, almost too great for reality, or entire wretchedness. I blame you not for not seeking the society of either your cousin or my aunt, for neither are, or could be