hat intensity of anguish which I should feel in knowing
that something dreadful had befallen you. She told me, however, of poor
Ellen's death, and I was so lost in recovering you again that I cared
for nothing else all the evening, and until this morning had scarcely
thought of the aching, aching hearts she has left behind. Her poor young
husband, who loved her so tenderly, is half-distracted.

Oh, I have blessed God to-day that until He had given me a sure and
certain hold upon Himself, He had not suffered me to love as I love now!
It is a mystery which I can not understand, how the heart can live on
through the moment which rends it asunder from that of which it has
become a part, except by hiding itself in God. I have felt Ellen's death
the more, because she and her husband were associated in my mind with
you. I hardly know how or why; but she told me much of the history of
her heart when I saw her last summer on my way home from Richmond, at
the same time that she spoke much of you. She had seen you at our house
before you went abroad, and seemed to have a sort of presentiment that
we should love each other.

But I ought to beg you to forgive me for sending you this gloomy page;
yet I was restless and wanted to tell you the thoughts that have been in
my heart towards you to-day--the serious and saddened love with which I
love you, when I think of you as one whom God may take from me at any
moment. I do not know that it is unwise to look this truth in the face
sometimes--for if ever there was heart tempted to idolatry, to giving
itself up fully, utterly, with perfect abandonment of every other hope
and interest, to an earthly love, so is mine tempted now.

_Feb. 13th._--Mother is going to Boston with sister on Saturday,
provided I am well enough (which I mean to be), as Mrs. Willis has
expressed a strong wish to see her once more. We heard from them
yesterday again. Poor Ellen's coffin was placed just where she stood as
a bride, less than eight months ago, and her little infant rested on her
breast. There is rarely a death so universally mourned as hers; she was
the most winning and attractive young creature I ever saw.

_Feb. 21st._--Are you in earnest? Are you in earnest? Are you really
coming home in March? I am afraid to believe, afraid to doubt it. I am
crying and laughing and writing all at once. You would not tell me so
unless you _really were coming_, I know ... And you are coming home!
(How madly my heart