And so we are poor: she says we have scarcely
anything to live upon after paying the two hundred
and fifty pounds a year for papa."

"Dec. 13th. A comforting letter from Jane.
She sends me Hebrews xii. 11, and says, 'Let us
take a part of the Bible, and read two chapters
prayerfully, at the same hour of the day: will
ten o'clock in the morning suit you? and, if so,
will you choose where to begin?' I will, sweet
friend, I will: and then, though some cruel
mystery keeps us apart, our souls will be together
over the sacred page, as I hope they will
one day be together in heaven; yours will at
any rate. Wrote back, yes, and a thousand
thanks, and should like to begin with the Psalms:
they are sorrowful, and so are we. And I must
pray not to think too much of him.

If everything is to be put down one does, I
cried long and bitterly to find I had written that
I must pray to God against him."

"Dec. 14th. It is plain he never means to
come again. Mamma says nothing, but that is
out of pity for me; I have not read her dear face
all these years for nothing. She is beginning to
think him unworthy, when she thinks of him at
all. There is a mystery; a dreadful mystery:
may he not be as mystified too, and perhaps
tortured like me with doubts and suspicions?
they say he is pale and dejected. Poor thing!
But then oh why not come to me and say so?
Shall I write to him? No, I will cut my hand
off sooner."

"Dec. 16th. A blessed letter from Jane. She
says 'Letter writing on ordinary subjects is a sad
waste of time and very unpardonable among His
people.' And so it is; and my weak hope, daily
disappointed, that there may be something in
her letter, only shows how inferior I am to my
beloved friend. She says 'I should like to fix
another hour for us two to meet at the Throne
together: will five o'clock suit you? we dine at
six: but I am never more than half an hour
dressing.'

The friendship of this saint, and her bright
example, is what Heaven sends me in infinite
mercy and goodness to soothe my aching heart a
little: for him I shall never see again.

I have seen him this very evening.

It was a beautiful night: I went to look at
—the world to come I call it—for I believe the
redeemed are to inhabit those very stars hereafter,
and visit them all in turn—and this world I now
find is a world of sorrow and disappointment—
so I went on the balcony to look at a better one:
and oh it seemed so holy, so calm, so pure, that
heavenly world: I gazed and stretched my hands
towards it for ever so little of its holiness and
purity; and, that moment, I heard a sigh. I
looked, and there stood a gentleman just outside
our gate, and it was him. I nearly screamed,
and my heart beat so. He did not see me: for
I had come out softly, and his poor head was
down, down upon his breast; and he used to
carry it so high, a little, little, while ago; too
high some said; but not I. I looked, and my
misgivings melted away; it flashed on me as if
one of those stars had written it with its own
light in my heart—'There stands Grief; not
Guilt.' And before I knew what I was about I
had whispered 'Alfred!' The poor boy started
and ran towards me: but stopped short and
sighed again. My heart yearned: but it was
not for me to make advances to him, after his
unkindness: so I spoke to him as coldly as ever
I could, and I said, 'You are unhappy.'

He looked up to me, and then I saw even by
that light that he is enduring a bitter, bitter
struggle: so pale, so worn, so dragged! Now
how many times have I cried, this last month?
more than in all the rest of my life a great deal.
'Unhappy!' he said; 'I must be a contemptible
thing if I was not unhappy.' And then he asked
me should not I despise him if he was happy.
I did not answer that: but I asked him why he
was unhappy. And when I had, I was half
frightened: for he never evades a question the
least bit.

He held his head higher still, and said, 'I am
unhappy because I cannot see the path of
honour.'

Then I babbled something, I forget what:
then he went on like this—ah, I never forget
what he says—he said Cicero says Æquitas ipsa
lucet per se; something significat* something
else: and he repeated it slowly for me, he knows
I know a little Latin; and told me that was as
much as to say 'Justice is so clear a thing, that
whoever hesitates must be on the road of wrong.
And yet,' he said, bitterly, 'I hesitate and doubt,
in a matter of right and wrong, like an Academic
philosopher weighing and balancing mere speculative
straws.' Those were his very words.
'And so,' said he, 'I am miserable; deserving
to be miserable.'

* Dubitatio cogitationem significat injuriæ.

Then I ventured to remind him that he, and I,
and all Christian souls, had a resource not known
to heathen philosophers, however able. And I
said, 'Dear Alfred, when I am in doubt and
difficulty, I go and pray to Him to guide me
aright: have you done so?' No, that had never
occurred to him: but he would, if I made a point
of it; and at any rate he could not go on in
this way; I should soon see him again, and, once
his mind was made up, no shrinking from mere
consequences, he promised me. Then we bade
one another good night, and he went off holding
his head as proudly as he used: and poor silly
me fluttered, and nearly hysterical, as soon as I
quite lost sight of him."

"Dec. 17th. At church in the morning: a good
sermon. Notes and analysis. In the evening
Jane's clergyman preached. She came. Going
out I asked her a question about what we had
heard; but she did not answer me. At parting
she told me she made a rule not to speak coming
from church, not even about the sermon. This
seemed austere to poor me. But of course she
is right. Oh, that I was like her."