"A pretty thing has happened to an acquaintance of mine, which is quite a tonic to one's hope. She has all her life been working in various ways, as housekeeper, governess, etc.,--a dear little dot about four feet eleven in height; pleasant to look at and clever; a working-woman without any of those epicene queernesses that belong to the class. More than once she has told me that courage quite forsook her. She felt there was no good in living and striving. Well, a man of fortune and accomplishments has just fallen in love with her--now she is thirty-three. It is the prettiest story of a swift-decided passion, and made me cry for joy. Madame B---- and I went with her to buy her wedding clothes. If you will only imagine all I have not said, you will think this a very charming fairy tale." In 1878 her happy companionship with the man she had so passionately loved was ended by his death. The only entry in her diary in 1879 is this: "Here I and sorrow sit." The desolation of her life told terribly upon her health and spirits. She saw no one, wrote to no one, had no thoughts, as she tells us, for many months. Among the first lines she wrote were these:-- "Some time, if I live, I shall be able to see you,--perhaps sooner than any one else,--but not yet. Life seems to get harder instead of easier. When I said some time, I meant still a distant time. I want to live a little time, that I may do certain things for his sake. So I try to keep up my strength, and I work as much as I can to save my mind from imbecility. But that is all at present. But what used to be joy is joy no longer, and what is pain is easier, because he has not to bear it." Again:-- "You must excuse my weakness, remembering that for nearly twenty-five years I have been used to find my happiness in his. I can find it nowhere else. But we can live and be helpful without happiness, and I have had more than myriads who were and are better fitted for it." As soon as she was able to see any friends, Mr. Cross, who was an old and valued one, began to visit her and be helpful to her in many ways, and he soon became a comfort to that gentle nature to which some prop was indispensable. She grew accustomed to him, and began to rely upon his support. After a while she could read with him, and her mind renewed its vigor. Still later she could play for him, and the consolation of music was added to her life. As the months went by she leaned upon him more and more, and found real comfort in his kindly ministrations. This is the first allusion to him in her letters:-- "I have a comfortable country practitioner to watch over me from day to day, and there is a devoted friend who is backward and forward continually to see that I lack nothing." Of the outcome of that watchful tenderness Mr. Cross says:--