"I am far happier, _ma Marie_, than I ever thought I could be. I took
your advice, and told my husband all I had felt and suffered. It was a
very hard thing to do; but I felt how true it was, as you said, that
there could be no real friendship without perfect truth at bottom; so I
told him all, and he was very good and noble and helpful to me; and
since then he has been so gentle and patient and thoughtful, that no
mother could be kinder; and I should be a very bad woman, if I did not
love him truly and dearly,--as I do.

"I must confess that there is still a weak, bleeding place in my heart
that aches yet, but I try to bear it bravely; and when I am tempted to
think myself very miserable, I remember how patiently you used to go
about your house-work and spinning, in those sad days when you thought
your heart was drowned in the sea; and I try to do like you. I have
many duties to my servants and tenants, and mean to be a good
_chatelaine_; and I find, when I nurse the sick and comfort the poor,
that my sorrows are lighter. For, after all, Marie, I have lost nothing
that ever was mine,--only my foolish heart has grown to something that
it should not, and bleeds at being torn away. Nobody but Christ and His
dear Mother can tell what this sorrow is; but they know, and that is
enough."

The next letter is dated some three years after.

"You see me now, my Marie, a proud and happy woman. I was truly
envious, when you wrote me of the birth of your little son; but now the
dear good God has sent a sweet little angel to me, to comfort my
sorrows and lie close to my heart; and since he came, all pain is gone.
Ah, if you could see him! he has black eyes, and lashes like silk, and