it, Hagar; and remember, _too_, that your eccentricities and wildness leave your sanity _questionable_ to some minds; that your jealousies will be the _ravings of madness, and that mad women are not to be trusted at large, or with the care of children_! So, for your own sake, Hagar—for the sake of all you hold most dear, be reasonable, cautious, and calm. It distresses me to write to you so, love, just upon the eve of my departure, but you are _so_ crazy—and I want you to try and retain the possession of your senses. Rouse yourself, love! go into society, cultivate and indulge all your favorite tastes; repurchase your little Arabian, and be again the gay, glad Hagar you were at the Heath; cultivate your music, give concerts, in which you shall be the prima donna—collect a congenial circle around you—purchase all your favorite books, and everything that suits your fancy—exhaust the little fund I have in bank, and let me know when it is gone. When you are weary of everything else, go and visit Mrs. Buncombe, at Churchill Point. Come, love, you have enough to occupy you during my absence. Take care of the babies. Rosalia sends her love to you—you know her aversion to writing, or any other work that requires mental application, and will therefore excuse her. Do _you_ write to me immediately—direct your letters to Port Mahon, and send them through the State Department. Why do you _not_ write to me?” In an hour from the moment of closing and mailing his letter, Raymond Withers placed Rosalia in a hack, drove to the steamboat-wharf, and embarked upon the Arrow, which left for Norfolk the next morning at six. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE DESOLATED. “Thou knowest well what once I was to thee; One who for love of one I loved—_for thee!_— Would have done, or borne the sins of all the world; Who did thy bidding at thy lightest look; And had it been to have snatched an angel’s crown Off her bright brow as she sat singing, throned, I would have cut these heart-strings that tie down My soul, and let it sail to Heaven to do it— ’Spite of the thunder and the sacrilege, And laid it at thy feet. I loved thee, lady! I am one whose love is greater than the world’s, And might have vied with God’s; a boundless ring, All pressing on one point—that point, thy heart. ——But, for the future, I will as soon attempt to entice a star To perch upon my finger, or the wind To follow me like a dog, as think to keep A woman’s heart again.” FESTUS “Well, just once more, mother!” “But this is expensive and inconvenient, please to remember, Mr. Gusty, and we are not rich.” “Not rich—oh! mother, I wish you would take something from _me_—which you never will.”