the unhappy marriages that have come to your knowledge: pray, have not
eighteen out of twenty been marriages for Love? It always has been so,
and it always will; because, whenever we love deeply, we exact so much
and forgive so little. Be content to find some one with whom your hearth
and your honour are safe. You will grow to love what never wounds your
heart, you will soon grow out of love with what must always disappoint
your imagination. /Cospetto/! I wish my Jemima had a younger sister for
you. Yet it was with a deep groan that I settled myself to a--Jemima.

Now, I have written you a long letter, to prove how little I need of your
compassion or your zeal. Once more let there be long silence between us.
It is not easy for me to correspond with a man of your rank, and not
incur the curious gossip of my still little pool of a world which the
splash of a pebble can break into circles. I must take this over to a
post-town some ten miles off, and drop it into the box by stealth.
Adieu, dear and noble friend, gentlest heart and subtlest fancy that I
have met in my walk through life. Adieu. Write me word when you have
abandoned a day-dream and found a Jemima.

ALPHONSO.

P. S.--For Heaven's sake, caution and recaution your friend the minister
not to drop a word to this woman that may betray my hiding-place.


"Is he really happy?" murmured Harley, as he closed the letter; and he
sank for a few moments into a revery.

"This life in a village, this wife in a lady who puts down her work to
talk about villagers--what a contrast to Audley's full existence! And I