'Yes!--I repeat it--I relinquish my pen with reluctance. A melancholy satisfaction, from what source I can scarcely define, diffuses itself through my heart while I unfold to you its emotions.--Write to me; be _ingenuous_; I desire, I call for, truth! 'EMMA.' [Footnote 6: Holcroft's Anna St Ives.] CHAPTER XXVI I had not courage to make my friend a confident of the step I had taken; so wild, and so romantic, did it appear, even to myself--a false pride, a false shame, with-held me. I brooded in silence over the sentiment, that preyed on the bosom which cherished it. Every morning dawned with expectation, and every evening closed in disappointment. I walked daily to the post-office, with precipitate steps and a throbbing heart, to enquire for letters, but in vain; and returned slow, dejected, spiritless. _Hope_, one hour, animated my bosom and flushed my cheek; the next, pale despair shed its torpid influence through my languid frame. Inquietude, at length, gradually gave place to despondency, and I sunk into lassitude. My studies no longer afforded me any pleasure. I turned over my books, incapable of fixing my attention; took out my drawings, threw them aside; moved, restless and dissatisfied, from seat to seat; sought, with unconscious steps, the library, and, throwing myself on the sopha, with folded arms, fixed my eyes on the picture of Augustus, which had lately been replaced, and sunk into waking dreams of ideal perfection and visionary bliss. I gazed on the lifeless features, engraven on my heart in colours yet more true and vivid--but where was the benignant smile, the intelligent glance, the varying expression? Where the pleasant voice, whose accents had been melody in my ear; that had cheered me in sadness, dispelled the vapours of distrust and melancholy, and awakened my emulation for science and improvement? Starting from a train of poignant and distressing emotions, I fled from an apartment once so dear, presenting now but the ghosts of departed pleasures--fled into the woods, and buried myself in their deepest recesses; or, shutting myself in my chamber, avoided the sight of my friend, whose dejected countenance but the more forcibly reminded me-- 'That such things were, and were most dear.' In this state of mind, looking one day over my papers, without any known end in view, I accidentally opened a letter from Mr Francis (with whom I still continued, occasionally, to correspond), which I had recently received. I eagerly seized, and re-perused, it. My spirits were weakened; the kindness which it expressed affected me--it touched my heart--it excited my tears. I determined instantly to reply to it, and to acknowledge my sense of his goodness.