hat parts us.

Maggie seems to feel it differently. A child accepts a changed
condition with perhaps a sharper pang, but with a swift accustoming to
what irreparably IS. She weeps at the thought of him sometimes, but
without the bitter resistance, the futile despair which makes me
agonise. That she can be interested, distracted, amused, is a great
help to me; but nothing seems to minister to my dear Maud, except the
impassioned revival, for it is so, of our earliest first love. It has
come back to bless us, that deep and intimate absorption that had moved
into a gentler comradeship. The old mysterious yearning to mingle life
and dreams, and almost identities, has returned in fullest force; the
years have rolled away, and in the loss of her calm strength and
patience, we are as lovers again. The touch of her hand, the glance of
her eye, thrill through me as of old. It is a devout service, an eager
anticipation of her lightest wish that possesses me. I am no longer
tended; I tend and serve. There is something soft, appealing, wistful
about her that seems to give her back an almost childlike dependence,
till my grief almost goes from me in joy that I can sustain and aid her.

September 7, 1889.

Another trouble has fallen upon us. I have had a very grievous letter
from my cousin, who succeeded by arrangement, on my father's death, to
the business. He has been unfortunate in his affairs; he has thrown
money away in speculation. The greater part of my income came from the
business. I suppose the arrangement was a bad one, but the practice was
so sound and secure in my father's life that it never occurred to me to
doubt its stability. The chief part of my income, some nine hundred a
year, came to me from this source. Apart from that, I have some three
or four hundreds from invested money of my own, and Maud has upwards of
two hundred a year. I am going off to-morrow to L---- to meet my
cousin, and go into the matter. I don't at present understand how
things are. His letter is full of protestations and self-recrimination.
We can live, I suppose, if the worst comes to the worst, but in a very
different way. Perhaps we may even have to sell our pleasant house. The
strange thing is that I don't feel this all more acutely, but I seem to
have lost the power of suffering for any other reason than because Alec
is dead.

September 12, 1889.

I have come back to-night from some weary nightmare days with my poor
cousin. Th