Well, my dearest, I am not yet come to the great thing I wanted to say. I have always found that there was so much truth in the suggestion that you must dig for hidden treasures _in silence_ or you will not find it; and so I dug after my poor little plan in silence, even from you. It was to go to be a nurse at Salisbury Hospital for these few months to learn the "prax."; and then to come home and make such wondrous intimacies at West Wellow, under the shelter of a rhubarb powder and a dressed leg; let alone that no one could ever say to me again, your health will not stand this or that. I saw a poor woman die before my eyes this summer because there was no one but fools to sit up with her, who poisoned her as much as if they had given her arsenic. And then I had such a fine plan for those dreaded latter days (which I have never dreaded), if I should outlive my immediate ties, of taking a small house in West Wellow.--Well, I do not like much talking about it, but I thought something like a Protestant Sisterhood, without vows, for women of educated feelings, might be established. But there have been difficulties about my very first step, which terrified Mama. I do not mean the physically revolting parts of a hospital, but things about the surgeons and nurses which you may guess. Even Mrs. Fowler[29] threw cold water upon it; and nothing will be done this year at all events, and I do not believe--ever; and no advantage that I see comes of my living on, excepting that one becomes less and less of a young lady every year, which is only a negative one. You will laugh, dear, at the whole plan, I daresay; but no one but the mother of it knows how precious an infant idea becomes; nor how the soul dies between the destruction of one and the taking up of another. I shall never do anything, and am worse than dust and nothing. I wonder if our Saviour were to walk the earth again, and I were to go to Him and ask, whether He would send me back to live this life again, which crushes me into vanity and deceit. Oh for some strong thing to sweep this loathsome life into the past. [29] The wife of Dr. Richard Fowler, physician to the Salisbury Infirmary, mentioned above, p. 35. And so ended for the time the dash of the caged bird for liberty. CHAPTER III THE SPIRITUAL LIFE Though the outward man may perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.--ST. PAUL.