ing that my husband's "old flame" has something of cold-heartedness
in her, and my heart has no great inclination to become warm towards
her.

It strikes ten o'clock. Ernst will not come home before twelve. I shall
leave you now, Cecilia, that----shall I confess my secret to you? You
know that one of my greatest pleasures is the reading of a good novel,
but this pleasure I have almost entirely renounced, because whenever I
have a really interesting one in my hand, I find the most cruel
difficulty in laying it down before I reach the last page. That,
however, does not answer in my case; and since the time when through the
reading of Madame De Stael's Corinne, two dinners, one great wash, and
seventeen lesser domestic affairs all came to a stand-still, and my
domestic peace nearly suffered shipwreck, I have made a resolution to
give up all novel-reading, at least for the present. But still it is so
necessary for me to have some literary relaxation of the kind, that
since I read no more novels, I have myself--begun to write one. Yes,
Cecilia, my youthful habits will not leave me, even in the midst of the
employments and prosaic cares of every-day life; and the flowers which
in the morning-tide cast their fragrance so sweetly around me, will yet
once more bloom for me in remembrance, and encircle my drooping head
with a refreshing garland. The joyful days which I passed by your side;
the impressions and the agreeable scenes--now they seem doubly so--which
made our youth so beautiful, so lively, and so fresh,--all these I will
work out into one significant picture, before the regular flight of
years has made them perish from my soul. This employment enlivens and
strengthens me; and if, in an evening, my nervous toothache, which is
the certain result of over-exertion or of vexation, comes on, there is
nothing which will dissipate it like the going on with my little
romance. For this very reason, therefore, because this evening my old
enemy has plagued me more than common, I have recourse to my innocent
opiate.

But Ernst shall not find me awake when he returns: this I have promised
him. Good night, sweet Cecilia!

We will now, in this place, give a little description of the
letter-writer--of the mother of Henrik, Louise, Eva, Leonore, Petrea,
and Gabriele.

Beautiful she certainly was not, but nature had given to her a noble
growth, which was still as fine and delicate as that of a young girl.
The features were not regul