Ah, me! it is a dreary thing to feel alone in the world—to have no eye brighten at our coming, no voice ever ready with its eager welcoming, nothing to tell us we are beloved, and that fond thoughts and wishes are around our onward pathway. O, ye who have never felt this worst of desolations—ye whose best affections bind ye still, who have no link broken, no yearnings unfulfilled, fold to your hearts the precious blessing that lives in domestic ties and speaks in household love, and greet kindly and gently those whose life is lonely—who look around them and find no answering gaze, who pine with many tears for one glimpse of the tenderness whose living light is daily yours, who go forward sadly and silently, with none to love them, save those who are angels in Heaven. But there is a romance in every one’s experience, evanescent though it be; and at length its bright change rose upon Mary’s existence. I heard she was soon to be married, to a young clergyman, of whom all spoke in terms of approval and admiration. I sincerely rejoiced at an event so calculated to relieve at once her perplexities and regrets, and to summon sweet visions for one who had too long lived without affection in the world. I wrote to her, expressing all I felt—all my fervent hopes for her dawning welfare. I longed impatiently for her answer, anxious to discover if she realized as I wished the brighter career opening before her; but several weeks wended on, and brought me no reply. It was from another source I learned the dangerous and protracted illness of her lover, and a paper, tremulously directed by Mary’s hand, at length informed me of his death. Finally a letter came, with its black seal. It was the last farewell of one who loved me—the last pouring forth of tenderness from a heart that was broken; and yet, sorrowful as those lines were, they spoke of hopes unshadowed and immortal—of a pilgrimage troubled and toilsome, but full of reward, and of all an enthusiast’s delusive anticipations in the sacred enterprise before her.