e beyond what I could have expected
even in the early days of our friendship. He is most amiable
and agreeable; and when I compare his destiny to mine (much as
it may have been his own imprudence that ruined his
prospects), I feel that there is generosity in the warm
attachment which he shows me. We shall be in town on Saturday,
and I hope and trust that nothing will prevent our marriage
taking place on Monday, as we must be here again at the
beginning of the ensuing week; and one week, at least, I must
have for Ellen and for Hillscombe, before I plunge again into
all the business and excitement of the election."

Henry's letter to his sister was as follows:--

[I have never known or understood how Mrs. Middleton came to
give me this letter to read. She handed it to me with several
others, which had reference to my marriage; and I imagine that
it must have slipped among the rest unawares to her. I
returned the whole packet to her without making any
observation upon it, and she made none either.]

"My dear Mary,

"Can you understand me when I say that I retain a livelier
sense of the loveliness of those scenes which are connected in
my mind with acute sorrow (provided they be beautiful in
themselves), than of those where I have only known happiness?
Or does this seem to you nonsense? There is a spot in the
world where I once stood for a quarter of an hour alone,
suffering so intensely, that even now, when I think of it, I
wonder how, at the end of that time, I could meet the eyes of
others as I did, and show no outward signs of the anguish I
was enduring. Well, Mary, strange as it may seem to you, there
is not another spot in the world, the natural beauties of
which are so indelibly stamped on my recollection, or which
seem to have so entered into my soul. I never feel so much the
unalterable beauty and perfect harmony of the material world
as when the moral world within me is shaken to pieces and
leaves me not even a reed to lean upon. It is the same with
music. Once, when a fearful struggle was going on within me,
and (no matter whether right or wrong) I thought myself very
near death, an organ in the street played a Scotch air which I
had heard a thousand times before; but then, for the first
time, I understood it. Each note had a meaning, each
modulation had a sense, which has never been lost to me since.
Suffering and emotion are necessary (I believe it firmly) to
expand our faculties in every line, and