shment. You can never be loved as you are here," she
continued, laying my hand upon her heart. "I now confess it; but Lady
Dudley has saved me. To her the stains,--I do not envy them,--to me the
glorious love of angels! I have traversed vast tracts of thought since
you returned here. I have judged life. Lift up the soul and you rend it;
the higher we go the less sympathy we meet; instead of suffering in the
valley, we suffer in the skies, as the soaring eagle bears in his heart
the arrow of some common herdsman. I comprehend at last that earth and
heaven are incompatible. Yes, to those who would live in the celestial
sphere God must be all in all. We must love our friends as we love our
children,--for them, not for ourselves. Self is the cause of misery and
grief. My soul is capable of soaring higher than the eagle; there is
a love which cannot fail me. But to live for this earthly life is too
debasing,--here the selfishness of the senses reigns supreme over the
spirituality of the angel that is within us. The pleasures of passion
are stormy, followed by enervating anxieties which impair the vigor of
the soul. I came to the shores of the sea where such tempests rage;
I have seen them too near; they have wrapped me in their clouds; the
billows did not break at my feet, they caught me in a rough embrace
which chilled my heart. No! I must escape to higher regions; I should
perish on the shores of this vast sea. I see in you, as in all others
who have grieved me, the guardian of my virtue. My life has been mingled
with anguish, fortunately proportioned to my strength; it has thus been
kept free from evil passions, from seductive peace, and ever near to
God. Our attachment was the mistaken attempt, the innocent effort of
two children striving to satisfy their own hearts, God, and men--folly,
Felix! Ah," she said quickly, "what does that woman call you?"

"'Amedee,'" I answered, "'Felix' is a being apart, who belongs to none
but you."

"'Henriette' is slow to die," she said, with a gentle smile, "but
die she will at the first effort of the humble Christian, the
self-respecting mother; she whose virtue tottered yesterday and is
firm to-day. What may I say to you? This. My life has been, and is,
consistent with itself in all its circumstances, great and small. The
heart to which the rootlets of my first affection should have clung, my
mother's heart, was closed to me, in spite of my persistence in seeking
a cleft through which