e no choice but to
prance: and if any into whose hands this book may fall hereafter shall
reckon me a silly old woman, I hereby do them to wit that their account
tallieth to one farthing with the adding of _Joyce Morrell_.

I have read over the writings of these my cousins: and as I am commanded
to write my thoughts on that matter, I must say that methinks but one of
them hath done as she laid out to do. That _Nell_ hath been wise on
every page will I not deny; at the least, if not, they be right few.
But I reckon _Edith_ hath been wise on more than the last (though not on
all) and hath thus done better than she looked for: while as to _Milly_,
she hath been wise on none of her first writing, and on all of her
second. Verily, when I came to read that record of _February_, I might
scarce credit that _Milisent_ was she that writ.

Ah, these young maids! how do they cause an elder woman to live o'er her
life again! To look thereat in one light, it seemeth me as a century
had passed sithence I were as they: and yet turn to an other, and it is
but yestereven since I was smoothing _Anstace'_ pillow, and making tansy
puddings for my father, and walking along the garden, in a dream of
bliss that was never to be, with one I will not name, but who shall
never pass along those garden walks with me, never any more.

And dost thou think it sorrow, young _Edith_, rosebud but just breaking
into bloom, to clasp the hand of aught and say unto it, "Farewell, Last
Time!" I shall not gainsay thee. All young things have such moods,
half melancholical, half delightsome, and I know when I was as much
given to them as ever thou art. But there be sorrows to which there is
no last time that you may know,--no clasping of loving hands, no tender
farewell: only the awful waking to find that you have dreamed a dream,
and the utter blank of life that cometh after. Our worst sufferings are
not the crushing pain for which all around comfort you and smoothe your
pillow, and try one physic after an other that shall may-be give you
ease. They are those for which none essayeth to comfort you, and you
could not bear it if they did. No voice save His that knoweth our frame
can speak comfort then, and oft-times not His even can speak hope.

Ay, and they that account other folk cheery and hopeful,--as I see from
these writings that these maids do of me,--what wit they of the inner
conflict, and the dreary plains of despair we have by times to cross?