Now do be nice and write me one little bit of a mite of a poem,—­it will make me just as happy!

I am very well, and as happy as I can be when you are away.

Your affectionate Susie.

(Directed to Mr. Clement Lindsay, Alderbank.)

The envelope of this letter was unbroken, as was before said, when the young man took it from his desk.  He did not tear it with the hot impatience of some lovers, but cut it open neatly, slowly, one would say sadly.  He read it with an air of singular effort, and yet with a certain tenderness.  When he had finished it, the drops were thick on his forehead; he groaned and put his hands to his face, which was burning red.

This was what the impulse of boyhood, years ago, had brought him to!  He was a stately youth, of noble bearing, of high purpose, of fastidious taste; and, if his broad forehead, his clear, large blue eyes, his commanding features, his lips, firm, yet plastic to every change of thought and feeling, were not an empty mask, might not improbably claim that Promethean quality of which the girl’s letter had spoken,—­the strange, divine, dread gift of genius.

This poor, simple, innocent, trusting creature, so utterly incapable of coming into any true relation with his aspiring mind, his large and strong emotions,—­this mere child, all simplicity and goodness, but trivial and shallow as the little babbling brooklet that ran by his window to the river, to lose its insignificant being in the swift torrent he heard rushing over the rocks,—­this pretty idol for a weak and kindly and easily satisfied worshipper, was to be enthroned as the queen of his affections, to be adopted as the companion of his labors!  The boy, led by the commonest instinct, the mere attraction of biped to its female, which accident had favored, had thrown away the dearest possession of manhood,—­liberty,—­and this bauble was to be his lifelong reward!  And yet not a bauble either, for a pleasing person and a gentle and sweet nature, which had once made her seem to him the very paragon of loveliness, were still hers.  Alas! her simple words were true,—­he had grown away from her.  Her only fault was that she had not grown with him, and surely he could not reproach her with that.

“No,” he said to himself, “I will never leave her so long as her heart clings to me.  I have been rash, but she shall not pay the forfeit.  And if I may think of myself, my life need not be wretched because she cannot share all my being with me.  The common human qualities are more than all exceptional gifts.  She has a woman’s heart; and what talent of mine is to be named by the love a true woman can offer in exchange for these divided and cold affections?  If it had pleased God to mate me with one more equal in other ways, who could share my thoughts, who could kindle my inspiration, who had wings to rise into the air with me as well as feet to creep by my side upon the earth,—­what cannot such a woman do for a man!