y 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!

"What! cast away the flower I took in the bud because it does not show as
I hoped it would when it opened? I will stand by my word; I will be all
as a man that I promised as a boy. Thank God, she is true and pure and
sweet. My nest will be a peaceful one; but I must take wing
alone,--alone."

He drew one long sigh, and the cloud passed from his countenance. He
must answer that letter now, at once. There were reasons, he thought,
which made it important. And so, with the cheerfulness which it was kind
and becoming to show, so far as possible, and yet with a little
excitement on one particular point, which was the cause of his writing so
promptly, he began his answer.

ALDERBANK, Thursday morni