“The words opened to me a view of his character. I saw, too, by his love increasing with his esteem, the solidity of his understanding, and the nobleness of his nature. He went deeper and deeper into my mind, till he came to a spring of gratitude, which rose and overflowed, vivifying and fertilising the seemingly barren waste. I believe it to be true that, after the first great misfortune, persons never return to be the same that they were before, but this I know--and this it is important you should be convinced of, my dear Helen--that the mind, though sorely smitten, can recover its powers. A mind, I mean, sustained by good principles, and by them made capable of persevering efforts for its own recovery. It may be sure of regaining, in time--observe, I say in time--its healthful tone. “Time was given to me by that kind, that noble being, who devoted himself to me with a passion which I could not return--but, with such affection as I could give, and which he assured me would make his happiness, I determined to devote to him the whole of my future existence. Happiness for me, I thought, was gone, except in so far as I could make him happy. “I married Lord Davenant--much against my mother’s wish, for he was then the younger of three brothers, and with a younger brother’s very small portion. Had it been a more splendid match, I do not think I could have been prevailed on to give my consent. I could not have been sure of my own motives, or rather my pride would not have been clear as to the opinion which others might form. This was a weakness, for in acting we ought to depend upon ourselves, and not to look for the praise or blame of others; but I let you see me as I am, or as I was: I do not insist, like Queen Elizabeth, in having my portrait without shade.” CHAPTER VIII. “I am proud to tell you, that at the time I married we were so poor, that I was obliged to give up many of those luxuries to which I was entitled, and to which I had been so accustomed, that the doing without them had till then hardly come within my idea of possibility. Our whole establishment was on the most humble scale. “I look back to this period of my life with the greatest satisfaction. I had exquisite pleasure, like all young people of sanguine temperament and generous disposition, in the consciousness of the capability of making sacrifices. This notion was my idol, the idol of the inmost sanctuary of my mind, and I worshipped it with all the energies of body and soul. “In the course of a few years, my husband’s two elder brothers died. If you have any curiosity to know how, I will tell you, though indeed it is as little to the purpose as half the things people tell in their histories. The eldest, a homebred lordling, who, from the moment he slipped his mother’s apron-strings, had fallen into folly, and then, to show himself manly, run into vice, lost his life in a duel about some lady’s crooked thumb, or more crooked mind.