of a
dear friend. I made a great effort to conquer this feeling of
repugnance to my work, and thought of my dear Mrs. Harry, whom I
have seen, with a heart and mind torn with anxiety, leave poor
Lizzy on what seemed almost a death-bed, to go and do her duty at
the theater. That was something like a trial. There was a poor old
lady, of more than seventy years of age, who acted as my nurse, who
helped also to rouse me from my selfish morbidness--age and
infirmity laboring in the same path with rather more cause for
weariness and disgust than I have. She may have been working, too,
only for herself, while I am the means of helping my own dear
people, and many others; she toils on, unnoticed and neglected,
while my exertions are stimulated and rewarded by success and the
approval of every one about me. And yet my task is sadly
distasteful to me; it seems such useless work that but for its very
useful pecuniary results I think I would rather make shoes. You
tell me of the comfort you derive, under moral depression, from
picking stones and weeds out of your garden. I am afraid that
antidote would prove insufficient for me; the weeds would very soon
lie in heaps in my lap, and the stones accumulate in little
mountains all round me, while my mind was sinking into
contemplations of the nature of slow quicksands. Violent bodily
exercise, riding, or climbing up steep and rugged pathways are my
best remedies for the blue devils.

My father has received a pressing invitation from Lord and Lady
W---- to go to their place, Heaton, which is but five miles from
Manchester.

You say to me in your last letter that you could not live at the
rate I do; but my life is very different now from what it was while
with you. I am silent and quiet and oppressed with irksome duties,
and altogether a different creature from your late companion by the
sea-shore. It is true that that _was_ my natural condition, but if
you were here with me now, in the midst of all these unnatural
sights and sounds, I do not think I should weary you with my
overflowing life and spirits, as I fear I did at Ardgillan. I was
as happy there as the birds that fly in the clear sky above the
sea, and much happier, for I had your companionship in addition to
the delight which mere existence is