Min had caught a violent cold only a week before the Christmas-eve on which she expected me; and, in spite of all that science and love could do, she died before the dawn of the new year. She had looked forward to seeing me to the last, hoping against hope. She knew, she had said, that I would keep my word and come when she sent for me. But, when Christmas-eve arrived without my coming, she did not seem disappointed. She then said that God had willed it otherwise:--something must have arisen to prevent my arrival:--we would meet again in the Great Hereafter:--she would leave a message for me, to reconcile me to our brief separation, ere we met once more. And, with that thought of me in her great loving heart, with that blessed reliance in her Saviour's promise, and with a smile of ecstatic bliss on her lips, she "fell asleep"--without my seeing her, O my God! Perhaps, on recollecting many of the incidents of my story, and calling to mind the tone and manner in which I have described them, you may have thought me then merry and light-hearted, where now I am moody and sombre? True; but, life is made up of grave and gay. It is hackneyed to say that "the clown that grins before the audience, who laugh with and at the merryandrew and his antics, is frequently weeping behind his mask;" yet, it is often the case. Life is hysterical and spasmodic. Many of us, believed by surface-studying people to be the gayest of the gay, have in reality a dull, rending pain gnawing us inwardly the while--like as the fox was gnawing the Spartan boy's entrails; and, like him again, we are too proud--for what is courage but pride?--to speak of our suffering. We do not "wear our hearts" on our sleeve "for daws to peck at!" The "consolation of religion," you suggest? Bah! How can I be consoled, when I have been bereft of all that made existence dear, receiving nothing in return--nothing but doubt and uncertainty, and a despair unspeakable? Could comfort accrue to me, when I wandered back along the pathway of memory, catching sunny glimpses of the rosy future which my imagination had marked out, and then comparing these with the dreary outlook that now was mine? When I think of what might have been and now can never happen, I rave! I should count my loss a "gain," you say? I cannot, I cannot! Saint Paul might have so truly exemplified the position of earthly misery as opposed to heavenly reward; but, _I_ am powerless to give the deduction a personal application. You tell me to look above, and have faith in the hope of rejoining her? She is there, I know--that is, if there be a just God, a heaven, and angels in paradise; but, how can I, sinner as I am and as I have been, dream of climbing up to such a height? It is an impossibility. I dare not hope for mercy and forgiveness. Why, the very angels would scout me; and she, who was always glad of my approach, would now draw aside the hem of her raiment lest I should touch it and defile her!