hen that union
will manifest itself as earthly and fallible; and the two disunited
spirits, finding each other again, will become united here for the world
beyond this--united, I tell you, in defiance of all human laws and of
all human notions of right and wrong.

"This is my belief. I have proved it by my own life. Maid, wife, and
widow, I have held to it, and I have found it good.

"I was born, madam, in the rank of society to which you belong. I
received the mean, material teaching which fulfills the worldly notion
of education. Thanks be to God, my kindred spirit met _my_ spirit while
I was still young. I knew true love and true union before I was twenty
years of age. I married, madam, in the rank from which Christ chose
his apostles--I married a laboring-man. No human language can tell my
happiness while we lived united here. His death has not parted us. He
helps me to write this letter. In my last hours I shall see him standing
among the angels, waiting for me on the banks of the shining river.

"You will now understand the view I take of the tie which unites the
young spirits of our children at the bright outset of their lives.

"Believe me, the thing which your husband's brother has proposed to you
to do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I own to you freely that I look
on what I have done toward thwarting your relative in this matter as an
act of virtue. You cannot expect _me_ to think it a serious obstacle to
a union predestined in heaven, that your son is the squire's heir, and
that my grandchild is only the bailiff's daughter. Dismiss from your
mind, I implore you, the unworthy and unchristian prejudices of rank.
Are we not all equal before God? Are we not all equal (even in this
world) before disease and death? Not your son's happiness only, but your
own peace of mind, is concerned in taking heed to my words. I warn you,
madam, you cannot hinder the destined union of these two child-spirits,
in after-years, as man and wife. Part them now--and YOU will be
responsible for the sacrifices, degradations and distresses through
which your George and my Mary may be condemned to pass on their way back
to each other in later life.

"Now my mind is unburdened. Now I have said all.

"If I have spoken too freely, or have in any other way unwittingly
offended, I ask your pardon, and remain, madam, your faithful servant
and well-wisher, HELEN DERMODY."

So the letter ended.

To me it is something more than a mere