d me to it, and now you must listen while I tell you of my
love for Katy. It began longer ago than she can remember--began when she
was my baby sister, and I hushed her in my arms to sleep, kneeling by
her cradle and watching her with a feeling I have never been able to
define. She was in all my thoughts, her face upon the printed page of
every book I studied, and her voice in every strain of music I ever
heard. Then, when she grew older, I used to watch the frolicsome child
by the hour, building castles even then of the future, when she would be
a woman and I a man, with a man's right to win her. I know that she
shielded me from many a snare into which young men are apt to fall, for
when the temptation was greatest, and I was at its verge, a thought of
her was sufficient to lead me back to virtue. I carried her in my heart
across the sea, and said when I go back I will ask her to be mine. I
went back, but at my first meeting with Katy after her return from
Canandaigua she told me of you, and I knew then that hope for me was
gone, praying for strength to bear my loss and hide my love from her.
God grant that you nor she may never experience what I experienced on
that day which made her your wife, and I saw her go away. It seemed
almost as if God had forgotten me as the night after the bridal I sat
alone at home, and met that dark hour of sorrow. In the midst of it
Helen came, discovering my secret, and sympathizing with me until the
pain at my heart grew less, and I could pray that God would grant me a
feeling for Katy which should not be sinful. And He did at last, so I
could think of her without a wish that she was mine. Times there were
when the old love would burst forth with fearful power, and then I
wished that I might die. These were my moments of temptation which I
struggled to overcome. Sometimes a song, a strain of music, or a ray of
moonlight on the floor would bring the past to me so vividly that I
would stagger beneath the burden, feeling that it was greater than I
could bear. But God was very merciful and sent me work which took up all
my time, leaving little leisure for regrets, and driving me away from my
own pain to soothe the pain of others. When Katy came to us last summer
there was an hour of trial, when faith in God grew weak, and I was
tempted to question the justice of His dealing with me. But that, too,
passed, and in my love for your child I forgot the mother in part,
looking upon her as a sister