life reflected on the clouds. As in a glass darkly, I have
seen what I might feel as child, wife, mother, but I have
never really approached the close relations of life. A sister
I have truly been to many,--a brother to more,--a fostering
nurse to, oh how many! The bridal hour of many a spirit, when
first it was wed, I have shared, but said adieu before the
wine was poured out at the banquet. And there is one I always
love in my poetic hour, as the lily looks up to the star from
amid the waters; and another whom I visit as the bee visits
the flower, when I crave sympathy. Yet those who live would
scarcely consider that I am among the living,--and I am
isolated, as you say.

'My dear--, all is well; all has helped me to decipher the
great poem of the universe. I can hardly describe to you the
happiness which floods my solitary hours. My actual life is
yet much clogged and impeded, but I have at last got me
an oratory; where I can retire and pray. With your letter,
vanished a last regret. You did not act or think unworthily.
It is enough. As to the cessation of our confidential inter
course, circumstances must have accomplished that long ago; my
only grief was that you should do it with your own free will,
and for reasons that I thought unworthy. I long to honor you,
to be honored by you. Now we will have free and noble thoughts
of one another, and all that is best of our friendship shall
remain.'

II.

CONVERSATION.--SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

"Be thou what thou singly art, and personate only thyself.
Swim smoothly in the stream of thy nature, and live but one
man."

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

"Ah, how mournful look in letters
Black on white, the words to me,
Which from lips of thine cast fetters
Bound the heart, or set It free."

GOETHE, _translated by J.S. Dwight_.

"Zu erfinden, zu beschliessen,
Bleibe, Kunstler, oft allein;
Deines Wirkes zu geniessen
Eile freudig zum Verein,
Hier im Ganzen schau erfahre
Deines eignes Lebenslauf,
Und die Thaten mancher Jahre
Gehn dir in dem Nachbar auf."

GOETHE, _Artist's Song_.

* * * * *

When I first knew Margaret, she was much in society, but in a circle
of her own,--of friends whom she had drawn around her, and whom she
entertained and delighted by her exuberant talent. Of those belonging
to