“Perhaps, indeed, you do not in the faintest degree remember me. You may have to recall with an effort the time of childhood, or at least that time when I was your school-companion; nay, it may be an effort for you to recall my name. Oh, if that is the truth, how very different is it to the memory I have treasured of you, dear Grace. My home has been upon the oceans and in the deserts, and mid the wilds of nature every where. Many years have passed since I left my father’s house, and my feet have never from that time touched upon my native shores. During these years of absence I have had opportunities to try my heart. I have learned who are the friends most dear to me, and over the vast sea of the desert sand, across the great ocean, let my voice come and whisper in your ear, Grace, there are none, none whose memory is so treasured now as is your own! The longing which is so often felt by the wanderer for the scenes and familiar faces of his native land, has never before pressed so heavily on me as this night; and now I wish, oh, how eagerly, to revisit, if it be only for an hour, that quiet place where a portion of my school-life was passed; and yet it is only because it is, or may be still _your_ home; and were I there again, I might tread with _you_ along the race-course, and over the old bridge to —— Grove, and through all the haunts now treasured in my memory. Do you remember the gifts we gave at parting? and did you fling away the bud as a worthless, trifling thing, even before it was faded? Or—what madness, you will think, prompted such an idea—do you keep it still? Perhaps you had not then so fully awakened to the life of the heart, you may not have dreamed that with that simple memento I gave to you the dreams of my boyhood, the hopes of my youth. Grace, I gave you MY HEART with the flower. I have never since recalled it. And now, if memories are returning again to you, if you are looking half tremblingly into the past, you will think of the little curl and the frail forget-me-not. Oh, you will not need that I should tell now how in danger and in suffering, and through all the most varied experiences I have preserved them—and how I have _not_ forgotten.