decision to resolve that she would dispose of herself!

'I heard of Harry Richmond before I saw him. My curiosity to behold the
two fair boys of the sailor kingdom set me whipping my pony after them
that day so remote, which is always yesterday. My thoughts followed you,
and I wondered--does he mean to be a distinguished countryman of his
Nelson? or a man of learning? Then many an argument with "my Professor,"
until--for so it will ever be--the weaker creature did succumb in the
open controversy, and thought her thoughts to herself. Contempt of
England gained on me still. But when I lay withered, though so young, by
the sea-shore, his country's ancient grandeur insisted, and I dreamed of
Harry Richmond, imagining that I had been false to my childhood. You
stood before me, dearest. You were kind: you were strong, and had a
gentle voice. Our souls were caught together on the sea. Do you recollect
my slip in the speaking of Lucy Sibley's marriage?--"We change
countries." At that moment I smelt salt air, which would bring you to my
sight and touch were you and I divided let me not think how far.

'To-morrow I tell the prince, my father, that I am a plighted woman. Then
for us the struggle, for him the grief. I have to look on him and deal
it.

'I can refer him to Dr. Julius for my estimate of my husband's worth.

'"My Professor" was won by it. He once did incline to be the young bold
Englishman's enemy. "Why is he here? what seeks he among us?" It was his
jealousy, not of the man, but of the nation, which would send one to
break and bear away his carefully cultivated German lily. No eye but his
did read me through. And you endured the trial that was forced on you.
You made no claim for recompense when it was over. No, there is no pure
love but strong love! It belongs to our original elements, and of its
purity should never be question, only of its strength.

'I could not help you when you were put under scrutiny before the
margravine and the baroness. Help from me would have been the betrayal of
both. The world has accurate eyes, if they are not very penetrating. The
world will see a want of balance immediately, and also too true a
balance, but it will not detect a depth of concord between two souls that
do not show some fretfulness on the surface.

'So it was considered that in refusing my cousin Otto and other proposed
alliances, I was heart-free. An instructed princess, they thought, was of
the woeful species of wo