me
Is harvested for thine Eternity!

ESTHER."

The fourth letter was the one which Princess had found, the first which my
uncle had read--Esther's farewell to her lover before going abroad. No
wonder that it so moved him!

"SUNDAY NIGHT.

"MY DARLING:--I implore you not to come. Have I not loved you enough, all
these years long, for you to trust me, and believe that it is only because
I love you so much that I cannot, cannot see you now? Dear, did I ever
before ask you to forego your wish for mine? Did I ever before withhold
anything from you, my darling? Ah, love, you know--oh, how well you know,
that always, in every blissful moment we have spent together, my bliss
has been shadowed by a little, interrupted by a little, because my soul
was forever restlessly asking, seeking, longing, for one more joy,
delight, rapture, to give to you!

"Now listen, darling. You say it is almost a year since we met; true, but
if it were yesterday, would you remember it any more clearly? Why, my
precious one, I can see over again at this moment each little movement
which you made, each look your face wore; I can hear every word; I can
feel every kiss; very solemn kisses they were too, love, as if we had
known.

"You say we may never meet again. True. But if that is to be so, all the
more I choose to leave with you the memory of the face you saw then,
rather than of the one you would see to-day. Be compassionate, darling,
and spare me the pain of seeing your pain at sight of my poor changed
face. I hope it is not vanity, love, which makes me feel this so strongly.
Being so clearly and calmly conscious as I am that very possibly my
earthly days are near their end, it does not seem as if mere vanity could
linger in my soul. And you know you have always said, dearest, that I had
none. I know I have always wondered unspeakably that you could find
pleasure in my face, except occasionally, when I have felt, as it were, a
great sudden glow and throb of love quicken and heat it under your gaze;
then, as I have looked up in your eyes, I have sometimes had a flash of
consciousness of a transfiguration in the very flesh of my face, just as I
have a sense of rapturous strength sometimes in the very flesh and bone of
my right hand, when I strike on the piano some of Beethoven's chords. But
I know that, except in the light of your presence, I have no beauty. I
had not so much to lose by illness as other women. But, dear one, that
little i