"As soon as I could so arrange my affairs at home as to leave them, I went to my sick-souled friend. I found her in her chamber and lying on her bed. She looked paler than ever, and her eyes were dry and tearless as when I first saw her before. All over the bed, and pressed in her hands, were letters strewn, half open, and which she had evidently been reading. She looked up at me when I entered, but immediately began gathering up the letters with a strange carefulness, placing them one above the other according to their dates, taking no further notice of me. I saw something agitating had occurred, and seated myself without speaking till she should be more composed. I knew they were Randolph's letters; I had seen them before. "Presently she spoke in a low voice and seemingly exhausted manner. "'Susan!' I was by her instantly. She gave me a folded manuscript. 'Between you and me there is no need of words. Take this and read it. It is the last death I shall cause. Leave me now, dear Susan; perhaps I may sleep, who knows' "She put her hands over her eyes--they were burning as coals--and tried to smile, but the lips refused the mockery. I begged her to lie down and try to sleep, closed the curtains, and left the room, not a little anxious to see the contents of the manuscript which I hoped would explain this new grief. "The first letter was from a clergyman at the South, containing the intelligence of Randolph's death, after a long illness, and transmitting, at his request, the sealed packet to Mrs. Gardner. "And saddening enough was the recital of the young man's sorrows. He began with saying that he had scrupulously abstained from ever mentioning his attachment to Mary while he had lived, but he could not refrain from asking her pity for him when he could never more disturb or injure her. He inclosed to her his journal, kept from the first day he saw her, when he loved her with all the fervor of his southern nature, and all the confidence of youth. Then followed the shock of hearing from Mr. Dunbar's own lips of his sister's engagement and approaching marriage. Then the farewell note of wounded affection that assumed indifference. Then a long delirious fever; then the news of Mary's marriage; and then the vain attempt to conquer his ill-fated love. His delight in his correspondence with her; it had been the life of his life, all that soothed the downward passage to the grave. To that grave he had gladly come, feeling that happiness was forever denied him, and only begged her to believe in his never-varying love from the moment he met her to this dying hour, when he signed his name to the last words he should address to mortal. "All that she had lost--all she might have been, and might have enjoyed in a union with this young man, so brilliant, so amiable, so devoted, rushed on my heart, and contrasting with the reality a few paces off, made me weep bitterly. Oh! had they never loved so kindly!