"Either you must go, or I," said she: "and pray let it be you. Also this place is unworthy of your high gifts: and I love you, in my way, the way I mean to love you when we meet again--in Heaven; and I labour your advancement to a sphere more worthy of you." I wish space permitted me to lay the whole correspondence before the reader; but I must confine myself to its general purport. It proceeded in this way: the priest, humble, eloquent, pathetic; but gently, yet pertinaciously, clinging to the place: the lady, gentle, wise, and firm, detaching with her soft fingers, first one hand, then another, of the poor priest's, till at last he was driven to the sorry excuse that he had no money to travel with, nor place to go to. "I can't understand it," said Griffith. "Are these letters all forged, or are there two Kate Gaunts? the one that wrote these prudent letters, and the one I caught upon this very priest's arm. Perdition!" Mrs. Gaunt started to her feet. "Methinks 'tis time for me to leave the room," said she, scarlet. "Gently, my good friends; one thing at a time," said Francis. "Sit thou down, impetuous. The letters, sir, what think you of them?" "I see no harm in them," said Griffith. "No harm! is that all? But I say these are very remarkable letters, sir: and they show us that a woman may be innocent and unsuspicious, and so seem foolish, yet may be wise for all that. In her early communication with Leonard '----at Wisdom's gate Suspicion slept; And thought no ill where no ill seemed.' But, you see, suspicion being once aroused, wisdom was not to be lulled nor blinded. But that is not all: these letters breathe a spirit of Christian charity; of true, and rare, and exalted piety; tender are they, without passion; wise, yet not cold; full of conjugal love, and of filial pity for an erring father, whom she leads, for his good, with firm yet dutiful hand. Trust to my great experience: doubt the chastity of snow rather than hers who could write these pure and exquisite lines. My good friend, you heard me rebuke and sneer at this poor lady, for being too innocent and unsuspicious of man's frailty: now hear me own to you that I could no more have written these angelic letters, than a barn-door fowl could soar to the mansions of the saints in heaven." This unexpected tribute took Mrs. Gaunt's heart by storm; she threw her arms round Father Francis's neck, and wept upon his shoulder. "Ah!" she sobbed, "you are the only one left that loves me." She could not understand justice praising her: it must be love. "Ay," said Griffith, in a broken voice, "she writes like an angel: she speaks like an angel: she looks like an angel. My heart says she is an angel. But my eyes have shown me she is naught. I left her, unable to walk, by her way of it; I came back, and found her on that priest's arm, springing along, like a greyhound." He buried his head in his hands, and groaned aloud.