then! I wrote to you. I thought likely enough you'd
got some money. We're pretty hard up here.' This was said with a silly
laugh and hiccough, which filled me with an indescribable loathing."

"And was this miserable, bloated wretch my brother--that brother whom I
had so longed and prayed once more to see, of whom I had thought by day,
and dreamed by night, for so many long years! I turned to go without
another word, but fell at the door, and lay, I know not how long,
without sense or motion. When I revived, I found the woman (who, I
suppose, was my sister-in-law) bathing my face. I have a dim
recollection, too, of seeing some dirty, miserable-looking children, and
of being asked for _money_. I laid all that I had about me on the table,
and, while they were eagerly catching for it, I left the wretched place;
and grasping by the fence to steady my feeble footsteps, I made my way
back to the inn. I took the next stage, and then the boat, for the home
of my kind old friend at Springdale, and arrived there ill in body and
mind. From there I wrote you, when partially recovered. As soon as I was
able, I began my school, and before long became much interested in my
little scholars; and in the hospitable home of my kind old friends,
regained tranquillity of mind, and after a time even cheerfulness. But
other trials awaited me. My head is weary, and I must rest before I
relate to you the remainder of my melancholy story."

"There was a young physician in that place, who had recently come from
the East, and settled there. He was a man of agreeable person and
manners, of much general information, and of very winning address; at
least, so he seemed to me. He was entirely different from all whom I had
met in that new country, and was the only person, besides my old friend
the clergyman and his wife, with whom it was really pleasant to
converse; and I felt perfectly at ease in his society, having been
assured that he was engaged to a certain Miss G----, the daughter of a
merchant in the village. Though much surprised at this, she having
appeared to me but a mere flippant gossip, and he a man of refined and
cultivated intellect, still I had no reason to doubt it, and was
completely taken by surprise when, after an acquaintance of a few weeks,
he one day made an offer of his hand and heart to _me_. I told him what
I had heard of his engagement to another, but he assured me it was the
idlest village gossip. 'There was nowhere else to g