down in the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine. I
wrote to these letters two answers--one for my own relief, the other
for Graham's perusal.

To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against
her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the ink
an eager pen, and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere heart.
When we had done--when two sheets were covered with the language of a
strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active gratitude--(once, for
all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the utmost scorn, every
sneaking suspicion of what are called "warmer feelings:" women do not
entertain these "warmer feelings" where, from the commencement, through
the whole progress of an acquaintance, they have never once been
cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be to commit a mortal
absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed
the rising of Hope's star over Love's troubled waters)--when, then, I
had given expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring
attachment--an attachment that wanted to attract to itself and take to
its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of its object; that
would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away all storms and
lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of solicitude--then,
just at that moment, the doors of my heart would shake, bolt and bar
would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and revengeful, snatch the
full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, direct,
and send a terse, curt missive of a page. She did right.

I did not live on letters only: I was visited, I was looked after; once
a week I was taken out to La Terrasse; always I was made much of. Dr.
Bretton failed not to tell me _why_ he was so kind: "To keep away the
nun," he said; "he was determined to dispute with her her prey. He had
taken," he declared, "a thorough dislike to her, chiefly on account of
that white face-cloth, and those cold grey eyes: the moment he heard of
those odious particulars," he affirmed, "consummate disgust had incited
him to oppose her; he was determined to try whether he or she was the
cleverest, and he only wished she would once more look in upon me when
he was present:" but _that_ she never did. In short, he regarded me
scientifically in the light of a patient, and at once exercised his
professional skill, and gratified his natural benevolence, by a course