MY DARLING SARA,--I can scarcely write. Although I know the mercy and wisdom hidden in these sad events, my heart is heavy. The best thing is to preach resignation _till_ you have it; and then, _because_ you have it, you _will_ preach it. Robert's love of Brigit makes little outward show, but I know that it is terribly real. We are never so near to our loved ones as when we have left them for God, but _nearness_ of that intangible, invisible kind amounts to agony. At least, I think so. Robert's self-restraint is killing me. When we first met, he shook from head to foot, his very face quivered, but he said nothing. I felt that he would never allow any one to speak of this trouble or offer him the least sympathy. In the necessary discussion of the legal aspects of the case, he was very calm, and seemed rather an adviser himself than the person chiefly concerned. It is not easy to understand him; yet I appreciate reserve. If everybody could understand us, what joy would there be in discovering our souls to those whom we love! Brigit has shut herself up in a room. She cries incessantly (she is so young) and is dreadfully changed. She wishes to go to Paris--for she has some idea of resuming her musical studies. Her voice is one of her great gifts, yet I can't imagine any one singing in such a tortured state of mind. I don't like to say that actually I fear for her reason, but she has, I see, far more heart, poor child, than I ever supposed. How wrong it is to attempt any judgment or estimate of another person's capacity for suffering! She is in a pitiable condition, unnaturally patient in a sense--for it is patience on the rack. Our Lord dreaded suffering and even feared it. Of course, one might easily say that an unhappy love affair is very common, that it is almost profane to compare such an ordinary trouble with the serious, exceptional trials of life. But although Lord Byron declared that "man's love was of man's life a thing apart," his own poems and his own career gave the lie absolutely to the statement (indeed, I am often tempted to believe that women exhibit, on the whole, greater strength of will in their affections than men). I must say, therefore, that the spectacle of a bride and bridegroom, devoted to each other, yet separated on their very wedding day, is quite as serious and sorrowful as (say) the death of a parent, or the loss of a child, or any other melancholy occurrence of everyday life. And what is worse, an atmosphere of _scandal_ penetrates this story--making it most shocking to all refined minds, and peculiarly so to temperaments of extraordinary delicacy. It will take every atom of _my_ courage and constant prayers to bear it _for_ them. What must it be, therefore, to