es, and so forth, is premature. With patience you
will be enabled to assume all, from which a momentary
precipitation would infallibly see you repulsed. A few of
your leading men still cling to the ruinous notion of
elevating Ireland; for Heaven's sake cease not to combat
this. It is the Church--the Church alone--for which we
combat. Her difficulties are enough, without linking her
fortune to such a sinking destiny! you have many able men
amongst you, and they ought to see this proposition in its
true light.

"You are right--though you only threw it out in jest--about
the interest I feel for my little Princess and her brother.
It was the charity of a relative of theirs--a certain Mr.
Godfrey--that first gave me the entrance into my career.
He sent me to Louvain as a boy, and thence to Salamanca, and
afterwards to Borne. He paid liberally for my education, and
I believe intended, had he lived, to have provided
handsomely for me. The story has an ugly ending; at least
the rumors are gloomy ones; and I would rather not revive
their memory. Here have I fallen into a sad track of
thought, dear Michel; and now it is past midnight, and all
is silent about me, and I feel half as if I ought to tell
you everything, and yet that everything resolves itself into
nothing; for of my actual knowledge, I possess not one
single fact

"Can you conceive the position of a man with a great, a
glorious future before him,--rewards the very highest his
wildest ambition ever fancied,--a sphere to exercise powers
that he feels within, and but needing a field for their
display? Picture to yourself such a man, and then fancy him
tortured by one terrible suspicion, one damning doubt,--that
there is a flaw in his just title to all this; that some day
or other there may rise up against him--he knows not how or
whence or why--from the very earth as it were, a voice to
say, 'you are disowned, disgraced,--you are infamous before
men!' Such a terrible hell have I carried for years within
me! Yes, Michel, this ulcer is eating at my very heart, and
yet it is only like a vision of evil,--some mind-drawn
picture, carried up from infancy through boyhood, and
stealing on, year by year, into the prime of life,
strengthening its ties on me like a malady.