I do not think it would be easy to over-estimate the importance of a high pure tone among the leading girls at such a place as Queen’s,— perhaps such as you and L. hardly know what a power lies in your hands, for the very life of the College,—and mayn’t we look higher than that, and say for our Master’s work? And after all that is the true and simple way of looking at it,—for consequences we can’t calculate,—but we always can know right from wrong, and the rest is not our affair. Well, dear child, God bless and guide you,—that is the true help.” And, finally, she writes in her diary: “Dec. 31st. 1861. The last day of the year! Now to ‘take stock’. I have just finished, and balanced exactly my money matters (within a deficit of 2s. 8d. with which I left London). Now for the moral and historical. See the last volume for the beginning of the year. _How_ well I remember the last day last year. Does she? How we did and sorted accounts till the chimes,—and then leant together out of the window in our new house fresh with plans and hopes, saying so hopefully, ‘And may the New Year cherish All the hopes that now are bright.’ And now truly almost, ‘For all my earthly hopes this (year) did kill.’ It is almost dreadful to look back and see how this book opens with a jest. How full of joke and spirit all seems! The ‘deep waters’ have come this year as never before. But it is a strange wild comfort to find in myself so much _capacity_ for suffering. I had always despised myself as a weak shallow nature, to leave others to suffer and escape with a laugh.... (Wrote one last letter to Frid[23] tonight—for her birthday tomorrow. Weak? I think not.) Well, now to ‘take stock’: The opening of the year, bright, clear, hopeful. Octavia’s visit to the north, but that no real break. Our delight in our new house,—its quiet and peace. Some disappointment is not letting, but that very endurable. No bar to happiness.... Then the return of Frid and Florence. My unwilling acquaintance ripening gradually into love for Frid, called forth perhaps first by her great love for me. Then our glorious Whitsuntide at Hurst,—Octa and I. The few days (Thursday to Tuesday) pure unmixed heart sunshine. Purer and deeper if possible than that of Wales. Then the strange double summons on May 21st., she to Mary Harris, I to the O’Briens. Coming like a thunderbolt on our week, but accepted by both obediently and willingly. Together to London. Then my mission to Tufnell Park. The hurried tea, the night mail, the parting hand pressure as the train moved, ‘in the sure and certain hope’—is it blasphemous so to use the words? I think not. There was a glorious churchlike solemnity always on our love. Well!—then the five months’ parting,—hard it seemed then, but painless—heaven—to what came after.