"This is the sixth time I have written to my mysterious friend, whose consolations are so sweet and precious to me, and come so opportunely and gratefully to support me in the sadness into which an unhappy affection plunges me, that I hardly know how adequately to thank the tender interest thus developed. There is for me a singular charm in confidences so vague, and yet so exact, made to an unknown individual, who appreciates the state of my heart with such infinite delicacy. I have been struck with what you tell me as to _the happiness of loving even without hope, even as one loves God for God's sake, and of finding in the sole devotion to the adored object a pure and unutterable felicity._ Your thoughts on the subject are in all cases so like my own, and that even in their most incomprehensible shadowings, that, by dint of being astonished at them, there has occurred to me an idea, which is foolish, impossible, mad. That idea is that----But no, I dare not even write it to you, at least not before I have avowed to you another of my beliefs. I am firmly convinced, that two persons passionately enamoured of each other must have, as respects love, certain ideas absolutely similar; thus, in consequence of all my ridiculous imaginings, I am weak enough to conclude that you may be the woman I love so hopelessly, and who at a ball at the Opera said to me these words,--_Faust_ and _Childe Harold_. That evening will never be banished from my memory." As she read this passage, Madame de Hansfeld trembled and blushed deeply with surprise, delight, and confusion; and then continued reading with a palpitating heart:-- "Pardon me this absurd hope; if I am wrong, these words will be to you quite incomprehensible, if I am not deceived, it may yet suit you to agree that I have not guessed, and then you will reply to me that I am in error, and our correspondence will continue as it has done.