“I do not need to tell you any more, Paul; for when I was still a girl we had promised that we would one day be man and wife. Laurence has been much in England, and I believe he is there now. The old gentleman treats me still as a daughter, and talks of the time when I shall come and live with him. The letters of Laurence are very kind, and though he does not talk so much of our marriage as he did, it is only, I think, because he regards it as so certain. “I have wished to tell you all this before, but I have feared to tell you; I am afraid I have been too selfish to tell you. And now, what can I say? Laurence seems most to me like a brother—and you, Paul—but I must not go on. For if I marry Laurence, as fate seems to have decided, I will try and love him better than all the world. “But will you not be a brother, and love me, as you once loved Bella—you say my eyes are like hers, and that my forehead is like hers—will you not believe that my heart is like hers, too? “Paul, if you shed tears over this letter—I have shed them as well as you. I can write no more now. “Adieu.” I sit long, looking upon the blaze, and when I rouse myself it is to say wicked things against destiny. Again all the future seems very blank. I can not love Carry as I loved Bella; she can not be a sister to me; she must be more or nothing! Again I seem to float singly on the tide of life, and see all around me in cheerful groups. Everywhere the sun shines, except upon my own cold forehead. There seems no mercy in heaven, and no goodness for me upon earth. I write, after some days, an answer to the letter. But it is a bitter answer, in which I forget myself, in the whirl of my misfortunes—to the utterance of reproaches. Her reply, which comes speedily, is sweet and gentle. She is hurt by my reproaches, deeply hurt. But with a touching kindness, of which I am not worthy, she credits all my petulance to my wounded feeling; she soothes me, but in soothing only wounds the more. I try to believe her when she speaks of her unworthiness—but I can not. Business, and the pursuits of ambition or of interest, pass on like dull, grating machinery. Tasks are met, and performed with strength indeed, but with no cheer. Courage is high, as I meet the shocks and trials of the world; but it is a brute, careless courage, that glories in opposition. I laugh at any dangers, or any insidious pitfalls; what are they to me? What do I possess, which it will be hard to lose? My dog keeps by me; my toils are present; my food is ready; my limbs are strong; what need for more? The months slip by; and the cloud that floated over my evening sun passes.