fancy has spread it over my own cheeks, I believe,
for I feel them burning, whilst a delicious tear trembles in my
eye, that would be all your own, if a grateful emotion, directed to
the Father of nature, who has made me thus alive to happiness, did
not give more warmth to the sentiment it divides. I must pause a
moment.

Need I tell you that I am tranquil after writing thus? I do not
know why, but I have more confidence in your affection when absent
than present; nay, I think that you must love me, for, in the
sincerity of my heart let me say it, I believe I deserve your
tenderness, because I am true, and have a degree of sensibility
that you can see and relish.

Yours sincerely,
MARY.

But there were days during his absence when her melancholy returned with
full force. She could not but fear that the time would come when the
coarse fibre of his love would work her evil. Just after he left, she
wrote,--

"... So much for business! May I venture to talk a little longer
about less weighty affairs? How are you? I have been following you
all along the road this comfortless weather; for when I am absent
from those I love, my imagination is as lively as if my senses had
never been gratified by their presence--I was going to say
caresses, and why should I not? I have found out that I have more
mind than you in one respect; because I can, without any violent
effort of reason, find food for love in the same object much longer
than you can. The way to my senses is through my heart; but,
forgive me! I think there is sometimes a shorter cut to yours.

"With ninety-nine men out of a hundred, a very sufficient dash of
folly is necessary to render a woman _piquante_, a soft word for
desirable; and, beyond these casual ebullitions of sympathy, few
look for enjoyment by fostering a passion in their hearts. One
reason, in short, why I wish my whole sex to become wiser, is, that
the foolish ones may not, by their pretty folly, rob those whose
sensibility keeps down their vanity, of the few roses that afford
them some solace in the thorny road of life.

"I do not know how I fell into these reflections, excepting one
thought produced it--that these continual separations were
necessary to warm your affection. Of late we are always separating.
Crack! crack!