they crowd again, and seem so conclusive until
I have written them down. I am unworthy to struggle with your intellect;
but I say to myself, how unworthy of you I should be if I did not use my
own, such as it is! The poor king; had to conclude an armistice to save
his little kingdom. Perhaps we ought to think of that sternly. My heart
is; filled with pity.

"It cannot but be right that you should know the worst; of me. I call you
my husband, and tremble to be permitted to lean my head on your bosom for
hours, my sweet lover! And yet my cowardice, if I had let the king go by
without a reverential greeting from me, in his adversity, would have
rendered me insufferable to myself. You are hearing me, and I am
compelled to say, that rather than behave so basely I would forfeit your
love, and be widowed till death should offer us for God to join us. Does
your face change to me?

"Dearest, and I say it when the thought of you sets me almost swooning. I
find my hands clasped, and I am muttering I know not what, and I am
blushing. The ground seems to rock; I can barely breathe; my heart is
like a bird caught in the hands of a cruel boy: it will not rest. I fear
everything. I hear a whisper, 'Delay not an instant!' and it is like a
furnace; 'Hasten to him! Speed!' and I seem to totter forward and drop--I
think I have lost you--I am like one dead.

"I remain here to nurse our dear friend Merthyr. For that reason I am
absent from your mother. It is her desire that we should be married.

"Soon, soon, my own soul!

"I seem to be hanging on a tree for you, swayed by such a teazing wind.

"Oh, soon! or I feel that I shall hate any vestige of will that I have in
this head of mine. Not in the heart--it is not there!

"And sometimes I am burning to sing. The voice leaps to my lips; it is
quite like a thing that lives apart--my prisoner.

"It is true, Laura is here with Merthyr.

"Could you come at once?--not here, but to Pallanza? We shall both make
our mother happy. This she wishes, this she lives for, this consoles
her--and oh, this gives me peace! Yes, Merthyr is recovering! I can leave
him without the dread I had; and Laura confesses to the feminine
sentiment, if her funny jealousy of a rival nurse is really simply
feminine. She will be glad of our resolve, I am sure. And then you will
order all my actions; and I shall be certain that they are such as I
would proudly call mine; and I shall be shut away from the world. Yes;
l