ve how incessantly I think of
you--how utterly you have become all in all to me. I could not tell this
to you, though I write it: is it not strange that letters should be more
faithful than the tongue? And even your letter, mournful as it is, seems
to me kinder, and dearer, and more full of yourself, than with all the
magic of your language, and the silver sweetness of your voice, your
spoken words are. I walked by your house yesterday; the windows were
closed--there was a strange air of lifelessness and dejection about
it. Do you remember the evening in which I first entered that house? Do
you--or rather is there one hour in which it is not present to you? For
me, I live in the past,--it is the present--(which is without you,) in
which I have no life. I passed into the little garden, that with your
own hands you have planted for me, and filled with flowers. Ellinor was
with me, and she saw my lips move. She asked me what I was saying to
myself. I would not tell her--I was praying for you, my kind, my beloved
Eugene. I was praying for the happiness of your future years--praying
that I might requite your love. Whenever I feel the most, I am the most
inclined to prayer. Sorrow, joy, tenderness, all emotion, lift up my
heart to God. And what a delicious overflow of the heart is prayer!
When I am with you--and I feel that you love me--my happiness would
be painful, if there were no God whom I might bless for its excess. Do
those, who believe not, love?--have they deep emotions?--can they feel
truly--devotedly? Why, when I talk thus to you--do you always answer me
with that chilling and mournful smile? You would make religion only
the creation of reason--as well might you make love the same--what is
either, unless you let it spring also from the feelings?

"When--when--when will you return? I think I love you now more than
ever. I think I have more courage to tell you so. So many things I have
to say--so many events to relate. For what is not an event to US? the
least incident that has happened to either--the very fading of a flower,
if you have worn it, is a whole history to me.

"Adieu, God bless you--God reward you--God keep your heart with Him,
dearest, dearest Eugene. And may you every day know better and better
how utterly you are loved by your

"Madeline."

The epistle to which Lester referred as received from Walter, was one
written on the day of his escape from Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, a short
note, rather than l