I have already visited every spot which has been consecrated by our interviews. I have found the very rail which, as I well remember, we disposed into a bench, at the skirt of a wood bordering a stubble-field. The same pathway through the thicket where I have often walked with him, I now traverse morning and night. Be not uneasy, I repeat, on my account. My present situation is happier than the rest of the world can afford. I tell you I have done repining. I have done sending forth my views into an earthly futurity. Anxiety, I hope, is now at an end with me. What do you think I design to do? I assure you it is no new scheme. Ever since my mother's death, I have thought of it at times. It has been my chief consolation. I never mentioned it to you, because I knew you would not approve it. It is this. To purchase this farm and take up my abode upon it for the rest of my life. I need not become farmer, you know. I can let the ground to some industrious person, upon easy terms. I can add all the furniture and appendages to this mansion, which my convenience requires. Luckily, Sandford has for some time entertained thoughts of parting with it, and I believe he could not find a more favourable purchaser. You will tell me that the fields are sterile, the barn small, the stable crazy, the woods scanty. These would be powerful objections to a mere tiller of the earth, but they are none to me. 'Tis true, it is washed by a tide-water. The bank is low, and the surrounding country sandy and flat, and you may think I ought rather to prefer the beautiful variety of hill and dale, luxuriant groves and fertile pastures, which abound in other parts of the country. But you know, my friend, the mere arrangement of inanimate objects--wood, grass, and rock--is nothing. It owes its power of bewitching us to the memory, the fancy, and the heart. No spot of earth can possibly teem with as many affecting images as this; for here it was---- But my eyes already overflow. In the midst of these scenes, remembrance is too vivid to allow me thus to descant on them. At a distance I could talk of them without that painful emotion, and now it would be useless repetition. Have I not, more than once, related to you every dialogue, described every interview? God bless you, dear Mary, and continue to you all your present happiness. Don't forget to write to me. Perhaps some tidings may reach you--Down, thou flattering hope! thou throbbing heart, peace! He is gone. These eyes will never see him more. Had an angel whispered the fatal news in my wakeful ear, I should not more firmly believe it. And yet--But I must not heap up disappointments for myself. Would to Heaven there was no room for the least doubt,--that, one way or the other, his destiny was ascertained!