"Life's business, with such delicious little interruptions as our correspondence affords, how pleasant it is!--why can we not paint on the dull paper our whole feelings, exquisite as they rise up?"
"----I had meant to have left off at this place; but looking back, I am sorry to find too gloomy a cast tincturing my last page--a representation of life false and unthankful. Life is _not_ all vanity and disappointment--it hath much of evil in it, no doubt; but to those who do not misuse it, it affords comfort, _temporary_ comfort, much--much that endears us to it, and dignifies it--many true and good feelings, I trust, of which we need not be ashamed--hours of tranquillity and hope. But the morning was dull and overcast, and my spirits were under a cloud. I feel my error.
"Is it no blessing that we two love one another so dearly--that Allan is left me--that you are settled in life--that worldly affairs go smooth with us both--above all that our lot hath fallen to us in a Christian country? Maria! these things are not little. I will consider life as a long feast, and not forget to say grace."
"----Allan has written to me--you know, he is on a visit at his old tutor's in Gloucestershire--he is to return home on Thursday--Allan is a dear boy--he concludes his letter, which is very affectionate throughout, in this manner--
"'Elinor, I charge you to learn the following stanza by heart--
"'The monarch may forget his crown, That on his head an hour hath been; The bridegroom may forget his bride Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
"'The mother may forget her child, That smiles so sweetly on her knee: But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, And all that thou hast done for me."
"'The lines are in Burns--you know, we read him for the first time together at Margate--and I have been used to refer them to you, and to call you, in my mind, _Glencairn_,--for you were always very good to me. I had a thousand failings, but you would love me in spite of them all. I am going to drink your health.'"
I shall detain my reader no longer from the narrative.
They had but four rooms in the cottage. Margaret slept in the biggest room up-stairs, and her grand-daughter in a kind of closet adjoining, where she could be within hearing, if her grandmother should call her in the night.