tter, and a single
passage from it will be enough:

"I can conceive of no simpler way to you than the knowledge of your
name and address. I have drawn airy images of you, but they do not
become incarnate, and I am not sure that I should recognize you in the
brief moment of passing. Your nature is not of those which are
instantly legible. As an abstract power, it has wrought in my life and
it continually moves my heart with desires which are unsatisfactory
because so vague and ignorant. Let me offer you personally, my
gratitude, my earnest friendship, _you_ would laugh if I were to _now_
offer more."

Stay! here is another fragment, more reckless in tone:

"I want to find the woman whom I can love--who can love me. But this is
a masquerade where the features are hidden, the voice disguised, even
the hands grotesquely gloved. Come! I will venture more than I ever
thought was possible to me. You shall know my deepest nature as I
myself seem to know it. Then, give me the commonest chance of learning
yours, through an intercourse which shall leave both free, should we
not feel the closing of the inevitable bond!"

After I had written that, the pages filled rapidly. When the appointed
hour arrived, a bulky epistle, in a strong linen envelope, sealed with
five wax seals, was waiting on my table. Precisely at six there was an
announcement: the door opened, and a little outside, in the shadow, I
saw an old woman, in a threadbare dress of rusty black.

"Come in!" I said.

"The letter!" answered a husky voice. She stretched out a bony hand,
without moving a step.

"It is for a lady--very important business," said I, taking up the
letter; "are you sure that there is no mistake?"

She drew her hand under the shawl, turned without a word, and moved
toward the hall door.

"Stop!" I cried: "I beg a thousand pardons! Take it--take it! You are
the right messenger!"

She clutched it, and was instantly gone.

Several days passed, and I gradually became so nervous and uneasy that
I was on the point of inserting another "Personal" in the daily papers,
when the answer arrived. It was brief and mysterious; you shall hear
the whole of it:

"I thank you. Your letter is a sacred confidence which I pray you never
to regret. Your nature is sound and good. You ask no more than is
reasonable, and I have no real right to refuse. In the one respect
which I have hinted, _I_ may have been unskilful or too narrowly
cautious: I must have t