So much for human foresight and wisdom! We hold our misery in our own
hand, and we do not know it, we look with impatient smiles and
longing, upon that whose fruit is sorrow for our hearts, and we cannot
see it or realize it.
Dinner was over at last, and I glided away from the happy circle to
the quietude of my own quarters I lit the lamp, and seating myself
comfortably in a rocking chair, tore open my friend's letter, and read
as follows:
"My dearest Amey
"I have looked forward with such impatient eagerness to this pleasure
of answering your last dear letter, and now that an opportunity
occurs, I hardly know what to say to you.
"Perhaps it is because there is so much I _might_ tell, if it were
only time, when the time comes you, and only you, shall know all, you
must not blame me for my present reserve, for at best, I could but
half tell it now, any way.
"It is something that has lain on my heart, day and night, for some
years, and that is likely at last to make me happier than I have been
for many a day. You will be glad of it, because it will have made your
poor Hortense so happy. It concerns some one else, about whom, you
must have made many strange conjectures, since your recent visit to
me, I was doubtful then, or I would have told you a little, but now I
feel more sure, and see my way better.
"However, I must not bewilder you with words in the beginning. I shall
only repeat that I see much happiness in the near distance for
Hortense de Beaumont.
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