truly loved, have always learned to content themselves with that inequality in the connection which I have never striven to veil.  Indeed, I have thought myself more valued and better beloved, because the sympathy, the interest, were all on my side.  True! such regard could never flatter my pride, nor gratify my affections, since it was paid not to myself, but to the need they had of me; still, it was dear and pleasing, as it has given me an opportunity of knowing and serving many lovely characters; and I cannot see that there is anything else for me to do on earth.  And I should rejoice to cultivate generosity, since (see that since) affections gentler and more sympathetic are denied me.

’I would have been a true friend to you; ever ready to solace your pains and partake your joy as far as possible.  Yet I cannot but rejoice that I have met a person who could discriminate and reject a proffer of this sort.  Two years ago I should have ventured to proffer you friendship, indeed, on seeing such an instance of pride in you; but I have gone through a sad process of feeling since, and those emotions, so necessarily repressed, have lost their simplicity, their ardent beauty. Then, there was nothing I might not have disclosed to a person capable of comprehending, had I ever seen such an one!  Now there are many voices of the soul which I imperiously silence.  This results not from any particular circumstance or event, but from a gradual ascertaining of realities.

’I cannot promise you any limitless confidence, but I can promise that no timid caution, no haughty dread shall prevent my telling you the truth of my thoughts on any subject we may have in common.  Will this satisfy you?  Oh let it! suffer me to know you.’

In a postscript she adds, ’No other cousin or friend of any style is to see this note.’  So for twenty years it has lain unseen, but for twenty years did we remain true to the pledges of that period.  And now that noble heart sleeps beneath the tossing Atlantic, and I feel no reluctance in showing to the world this expression of pure youthful ardor.  It may, perhaps, lead some wise worldlings, who doubt the possibility of such a relation, to reconsider the grounds of their scepticism; or, if not that, it may encourage some youthful souls, as earnest and eager as ours, to trust themselves to their hearts’ impulse, and enjoy some such blessing as came to us.

Let me give extracts from other notes and letters, written by Margaret, about the same period.

’Saturday evening, May 1st, 1830.—­The holy moon and merry-toned wind of this night woo to a vigil at the open window; a half-satisfied interest urges me to live, love and perish! in the noble, wronged heart of Basil;[D] my Journal, which lies before me, tempts to follow out and interpret the as yet only half-understood musings of the past week.  Letter-writing, compared with any of these things, takes the ungracious