of thorns, but must hide it under the
locks of brown or gray,--under the snowy cap, under the chilling
turban,--hide it even from themselves,--perhaps never know they
wear it, though it kills them,--there is no depth of tenderness in
my nature that Pity has not sounded. Somewhere,--somewhere,--love
is in store for them,--the universe must not be allowed to
fool them so cruelly. What infinite pathos in the small,
half-unconscious artifices by which unattractive young persons seek
to recommend themselves to the favor of those towards whom our dear
sisters, the unloved, like the rest, are impelled by their God-given
instincts!

Read what the singing-women--one to ten thousand of the suffering
women--tell us, and think of the griefs that die unspoken! Nature
is in earnest when she makes a woman; and there are women enough
lying in the next churchyard with very commonplace blue
slate-stones at their head and feet, for whom it was just as true
that "all sounds of life assumed one tone of love," as for Letitia
Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning said it; but she could give words
to her grief, and they could not.--Will you hear a few stanzas of
mine?

THE VOICELESS.

We count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,--
But o'er their silent sister's breast
The wild flowers who will stoop to number?
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them;--
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone
Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,--
Weep for the voiceless, who have known
The cross without the crown of glory!
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep
O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow,
But where the glistening night-dews weep
On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,
Till Death pours out his cordial wine
Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,--
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so badly off, after all.
That young man from another city who made the remark which you
remember about Boston State-house and Boston folks, has appeared at
our table repeatedly of late, and has seemed to me rather attentive
to this young lady. Only last evening I saw him leaning over her
while she